


In the Water

by Marsalias



Category: Original Work
Genre: Fantasy, Gen, Magic, Modern Setting, NaNoWriMo, NaNoWriMo 2018, Name magic, rural fantasy, weird small town
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-31
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:06:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 24
Words: 61,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22495297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marsalias/pseuds/Marsalias
Summary: He woke up in the woods with a head injury, a watch that could revive the dead, and a name that wasn't his.  Did he mention the corpse in the water?  Yeah.  There was a corpse in the water.Cut forward a few hours and he's promised to help a girl find her murderer in a small town where almost everyone can use magic, curses are something people have to navigate on a daily basis, and a good portion of population has been turned into crows.  Well, at least she's promised to help him track down the person that belongs to the name he remembers.  Too bad that person is also the sorcerer responsible for turning people into crows and has an army of red-eyed simulacra at his beck and call.Constructive criticism appreciated.
Comments: 166
Kudos: 70





	1. Pulled From the Water

Pain registered first, deep and throbbing, banishing all semblance of rational thought. Then, discomfort. Wet, cold, dirty, gritty, sore, numb, mud in places there should not be, and circulation cut off. 

The last prompted movement, the realization there _was_ circulation to be cut off. A breath, a gasp, was taken through clenched teeth and a mouth half blocked by mud. The air tasted cold, and smelled of decay, of mist and green things, with an undertone of copper. A single eye fluttered open, the other too deeply pressed into the ground to do more than twitch. 

A fist and a tattered sleeve swam into view, barely more focused than the blurry green-brown background. A blink. The fingers of the fist were wrapped around something small, with a golden chain. A locket?

Muscles twitched, protesting, then stilled. The position they were in was unpleasant, but movement was painful and disorienting, like he had never done this before, never moved, never thought, never existed.

'He.' That was a new thought as well. At least, it felt new, but perhaps it had simply been jostled out of place, removed from familiar surroundings. What could do that? The same thing making his head throb painfully and his limbs difficult to move? The same thing that had placed him here?

Finally, gaining a trembling illusion of control, he pushed himself from the ground and into a sitting position. Better. Breath came more freely without his face pressed into wet earth. A shaking hand came up to the blocked eye, and made an attempt at clearing it. The attempt was abandoned as good enough when he brushed the edge of what must be a nasty head injury. The hand came away covered with blood.

Idle in his lap laid the other hand, still tight around the object. It was important, but, safe for now.

More pressing questions beckoned: Where was he? Why was he here? Why was he hurt? How had he been hurt? What should he do?

Simple inspection of his surroundings gave him an unsatisfying partial answer to the question of _where_. He was in some kind of forest, or woods, on the bottom of a small incline. But that was all. Neither the trees, nor the weather, nor anything else gave him any clues as to country, though he guessed he wasn't in the tropics, considering how cold and damp he was. The _why_ probably had to do with the thing in his hand. The questions about his injuries had more complete answers. Judging from his position and the state of his clothing, as well as footprints and other disturbances in the mud and foliage farther up the slope, he had fallen down the hill, and hit his head on the bloody stone which now sat, innocently, a foot away from his knees.

But that brought him to the most difficult final question. What should he do now?

He was having a hard time thinking, having a hard time remembering, imagining, picturing things that weren't here, that he hadn't seen and felt in these last few minutes. They existed, they must exist, felt the shape of their absence, but little more. 

He didn't know what he looked like.

How would he go about finding out what he looked like? Mirrors? That _sounded_ right. Too bad he didn't have a mirror. 

Injuries like this were serious, and needed to be treated, but he didn't have any idea how. The word 'tourniquet' sprang to mind, but only as part of a joke. Something about, 'You tied a tourniquet around his _neck,_ doctor?' No, he didn't think that was viable.

Therefore, he needed help. Help meant doctors. People. He needed to find people.

... How was he going to do that?

He sighed, looking around himself. There was nothing visible except for trees, mist, brush, and dirt. No sounds except for wind, birdsong, and the burble of running water. No signs of humanity except for what he assumed were his own footprints, and those disappeared from sight at the top of the hill. Well, he had to have come from _somewhere_. Somewhere that had people. Probably. Still, he was reluctant to follow them, and not only because he didn't trust himself not to slip and fall again.

Perhaps there was something in his pockets. A phone, maybe. A phone would be useful. If he remembered the number, he could call for help. 

But of course, he didn't have a phone, or anything else, in his pockets, so the number hardly mattered. What kind of a person was he, not to have anything in his pockets?

The same kind of person who didn't wear shoes when going on a walk in the woods, apparently, only now noticing the oddity. Although, if that was normal for him, would he be recognizing it as an oddity? He didn't know how amnesia worked.

Self-assessment time. Maybe he should have done this first. 

He was cold, wet, thirsty, and a little nauseous. Other than the head injury, a couple of bruises and scrapes, probably from the fall, he was unhurt. Healthy. 

His clothing looked like it had been torn recently. The cloth had yet to fray along the tear. 

His skin was a sort of tan color, not brown. He wouldn't call it white, either, though that might have been because he was dirty. He certainly wasn't _clean_. His nails, at least on his free hand, were cut short, as was his hair. He had to pull a strand out to check its color, which was dark brown. He seemed to have all his teeth. He had one scar, a thin, white, horizontal line right above his heart. He would have to come up with a good story about that for the doctors, who would surely ask questions.

They would ask for a name, first. Before worrying about the scar, he should figure out what his name was.

A minute passed, his mind completely blank. He had no idea what his name was. None.

Fine. Then he should just pick an alias. Something like... He racked his mind for names. The only one that came up, bubbling from the Stygian depths of his memory, was Brandon Adrian Grant Walker-Rose, and that name was _not_ his, despite its incongruous clarity. Definitely not. The name was important, though, in the same way the thing in his hand, which he had yet to look at, was important.

He couldn't remember the president's name. He couldn't remember any president's name.

What country was he in?

No, at the moment things like _country_ weren't important. Honestly, the name thing wasn't important, either. He had been smacked on the head. Hard. He had a concussion and amnesia. That should be enough of an explanation for anyone. He didn't need to turn this into some kind of weird spy novel thriller thing.

How did he know what spy novels were like, and not who the president was? Not important.

What was important was convincing himself to start moving. All this, the over-thinking, was just him stalling because he was in pain and afraid to get up, afraid he couldn't, afraid of what was in his hand.

Where had that thought come from? What was the thing, anyway?

He grappled briefly with what he was more reluctant to do: open his hand, or stand. Well, opening his hand had more potential for immediate reward, while standing had more potential for immediate harm. Unless what he was holding was the trigger for some kind of bomb, one that would blow up as soon as he let the trigger go.

That seemed unlikely. Not impossible, considering his current circumstances, he was feeling open-minded, but unlikely. Hopefully the open-minded thing wasn't literal. He didn't _think_ his brain was hanging out of his skull. He was stalling again.

He opened his hand, and instantly knew what he was looking at. Lazarus Watchman's pocket watch, the masterpiece, the one that could bring back the dead. He knew how to use it, could describe intimately the method by which one could use it to revive one of the deceased.

Well.

Now he knew two names, neither of which were his.

This was interesting, and disturbing, but not particularly useful. He wasn't dead, the watch clearly wasn't working its magic on him, or anyone, as it wasn't ticking, and he was, thankfully, short on corpses. He stuffed the watch into his pocket.

He was going to have to get up, and go... Where? Not back uphill. Whatever he had been fleeing from, he did not want to return. Not yet.

Right. Examine that thought later. Stand first.

He pushed himself to his knees, and the little movement was enough to make him dizzy. It was a good thing his stomach was completely empty, otherwise he would have added vomit to the filth staining his clothes. He paused, panting, trying to regain his breath. That had hurt.

Next step, getting to his feet. This time, he moved more carefully, and kept his eyes shut. This approach worked. The second time. Mud, fallen leaves, and strands of grass squelched between his bare toes.

He rested, eyes still shut, trying to regain enough strength to actually walk and to _decide_ where to walk. The forest sounds were surprisingly peaceful, especially when contrasted with his current state. The wind winding through the trees, the rustle of branches, the scrape of dry leaves and pine needles, the water... The water.

The water!

He could follow the water. He could drink it, too, and quench his thirst. Probably. Most of humanity lived near the water, on coastlines, rivers, and streams. If he followed the trickle of water downstream, he would eventually reach people. In theory.

How could he remember this insane piece of demographics trivia, and not his name? Was he some kind of survivalist nutcase?

Since he used the phrase 'survivalist nutcase,' probably not.

He opened his eyes, and stumbled forward, using trees to support himself. A fortuitously placed and sized branch became a makeshift walking stick. He kept having to stop and rest, closing his eyes until his world stopped spinning. He had to keep going. Now he had started, he feared that if he stopped for too long, he wouldn't be able to start again, so he pushed himself. He would reach water, and civilization.

Gradually, the tinkling sound of water grew louder, closer. The air grew wetter, cleaner, fresher. He was making progress, even if he couldn't see more than three yards ahead of him, even if his feet were covered in scratches, even if his breathing was ragged, even if his sight blurred and spun with every step, even if it took him a full minute to move a foot.

Finally, he reached the stream, discovering it by stepping into it, sinking ankle deep into fine silt and weeds. Once he'd shaken off his momentary panic about drowning, he saw the stream was not as big as he had imagined when he fixated on it. In fact, it was the kind of stream that might dry up in the middle of the summer, or during a drought.

He stared at the mud swirling around his pant leg, barely comprehending, mind ticking over slowly. Well, he couldn't take a drink after kicking up so much dirt into the water. He supposed the water wouldn't have been terribly healthy, anyway. He sighed, and swallowed dryly, backing out of the stream.

The bank wasn't much dryer, though it was a little firmer. He placed his feet carefully. He'd had enough of slipping and falling already, no matter that he didn't actually remember the fall which had caused his head injury.

He looked to the right, upstream. There was nothing remarkable there, just the stream running between trees and vanishing in the underbrush. He looked left.

A corpse laid face down in the water, long black hair swept downstream, clothes stirring in the flow. It wasn't enough to move the body, not with the waterlogged clothing, and the shallowness of the stream. The clothing was feminine, a sweater, stockings, and skirt, things a young girl might wear.

His mind skittered to a halt, his heart skipped a beat, and he choked on his last breath. That was a corpse. There was a corpse. A corpse. He had specifically said he didn't want a corpse! Well, maybe he hadn't _said_ it, but he had thought it. He had! Promise!

He did slip then, but managed to catch himself without doing more than jostling his head, bruising his elbows, and scraping his hands, which all paled next to the injuries the corpse must have suffered to make it so. The corpse. His heart was hammering, his breath was coming in shallow puffs. His vision had grayed out and narrowed. That was a corpse! He was allowed to panic!

What if whatever had _caused_ the corpse was still nearby? What if he had been running from it? What if he had known the corpse, when it had been a person? This was too close to where he had woken up to be a mere coincidence. Maybe he _was_ living out a spy novel. Maybe he _should_ be worried about coming up with an alias. 

What if he had been the one to kill..?

He rejected the thought, violently. He didn't want this, a dead body, a dead person. He didn't want it. At all. That was the first thing, or among the first things, he had thought when he had seen the watch, he wasn't a-

The realization he had a way to fix this, to get _rid_ of the corpse, make it _not_ a corpse, calmed him. It didn't matter if this was his fault, he could fix it, and, at the same time, get the help he so desperately needed.

It took a while for him to get his body back under control, and to get hold of his walking stick again, longer to figure out how to stand without hurting himself. Then he hobbled over to the corpse, splashing as he went, trying not to think about what might be in the water with him. Blood, or bile, or tears, or leaches, or body parts, or monsters, or... No, he wasn't thinking about it. He wasn't.

Predictably, right after he thought that, he tumbled face first, into the stream, swallowing at least one mouthful of water. He struggled back up, spluttering, and took the last two splashing steps to the corpse, not thinking about what he had swallowed. Nope. He was upstream. All that... _stuff..._ would flow downstream.

Now, how should he do this? He leaned down slowly, and grabbed the shoulder of the sweater. It stretched as he straightened, and his feet and walking stick sunk further into the soft stream bed. 

So. Corpses were heavy, apparently.

He couldn't lift the body, not entirely, but, using its slipperiness to his advantage, he dragged it up to the bank, whereupon he collapsed next to it. This had better work, because he didn't think he would be able to get up on his own again.

He took a few minutes to get his breath back, looking up at the sky. It was getting darker. Or was that just his imagination? He had to admit, he hadn't been keeping track of time. How long had it been since he had woken up? One hour? Two?

Enough resting. He had to flip the body over. When he brought back the person, they'd be disoriented, and he didn't want them to lose contact with the watch, or suffocate in the mud and wet grass the corpse's face was currently pressed into.

He used his walking stick, coupled with a slightly larger, rounder, branch, as a kind of lever, to encourage the corpse to turn over. The stiff corpse reluctantly, with a great sucking noise, and a muffled splash, broke free, balanced precariously on its side, teetered, and fell.

Again, he had to wait to move, recovering his strength. Not that he was eager to interact with the corpse, with any corpse, at all, no matter that it would soon not be a corpse. This was a desperate measure, but it was also a desperate time.

He crawled over to the corpse, slipping and sliding. Next to its head, he came to a halt, drawing himself into a cross-legged position, and examined it. He leaned over, and raked its wet, matted, and tangled hair out of its face.

He'd been right about the corpse having been a girl. It was about his age, too. A teenager. And now he knew he was a teenager. Cool.

Ugly purple and gray marks circled its neck. The girl must have been strangled. So, definitely not an accident, though he hadn't expected it to be. He really hoped he had nothing to do with this.

His eyes traced back up to the girl's face. She must have been pretty, when she was alive. Now, though, her delicate Asiatic features were grayed over, smeared with slime and dirt, and bloated with water. And they were dead. Devoid of life. Not pretty except in an exceptionally morbid sense.

He shivered. Well, he had been shivering for a while now, the reason for it had just changed from the cold weather to the sheer creepiness of what he was doing.

He pulled the watch from his pocket, running his fingers over the cool, brass casing, thinking, remembering. Why did he remember this, how to use it, how it came to be, and not his own name?

Blinking hard, he banished those thoughts. Maybe he didn't remember his name, but he was going to save a life, save a person! In balance, that was far more important than his identity.

He looped the chain around the corpse's neck, trying hard not to shudder, or gag, at the touch of the corpse's cold skin, and clasped it together, so it wouldn't fall off. Then, almost sitting on top of the corpse, he cupped his hands around the watch itself, running his fingers over the seam between the two halves of the casing, looking for the release that would cause it to spring open.

When he did find it, the watch snapped open so fast, so suddenly, that he jumped, startled, heart racing again. He forced himself to calm down. Yes, there might be a murderer lurking out of sight in the trees, but panicking wasn't going to help.

Besides, the girl had to have been dead for a while. Her skin was like ice. A murderer wouldn't stick around for long, right?

Unless they were coming back to hide the body.

He returned his focus to the watch. The right hand half consisted of three interlocking clock faces on a background of rosy glass. He saw gears beneath the surface. There were three hands on each face, and the symbols they bore, picked out in gold, were neither numbers nor English letters. He couldn't decipher them at all. But he had been taught (by who?) that it didn't matter, he could use the watch without knowing how to read it. Carefully, he set all nine hands to the largest, central, symbol, the one each of the three clock faces shared, grimacing as he left dirty fingerprints on the hands and the glass.

The next important bit was the key in the other half. It fit snugly into a hollow on the other side like a puzzle piece. He fumbled at it, having difficulty getting his short, dirty fingernails into the hair's breadth gap between the key and the casing. Finally, he popped it out, but not before slicing his thumb open with the key's sharp edge.

Sucking blood from the wounded digit, he glared at the key. He had known it was sharp, but still, did it have to be _that_ sharp? All the way down the edge? Surely, a needle tip would have been enough.

He picked up the corpse's arm and laid it in his lap, then rolled back the sodden sleeve. He put the edge of the key against the pallid skin, and hesitated. This used to be a person. He'd been pushing it out of his mind, only thinking of it as a corpse, but now that he was going to cut it, cut _her_ , the thought was almost overwhelming.

Well, he was sure she would rather be alive with a cut than dead without one. He pressed the key down. Surprisingly little blood came out. He had to press down on the arm, squeezing it like a tube of toothpaste, to get enough blood to cover the key, and when it did come out, it was thick, viscous, and bluish, not at all like his own bright red blood.

Fighting down an ever-increasing sense of nausea, he inserted the slick key into a hole in the side of the watch, and turned it. Beneath the glass clock faces, the gears started to move, then the nine hands. With each turn, a little more of the blood was drawn from the key and into the watch, until the key was clean except for his fingerprints.

The key started to become difficult to turn. Each rotation had more resistance, every twist seemed to draw life and heat from his body. The watch grew warmer than his hand and glowed.

Still, now that he had begun, now that he had pulled her from the water, he wasn't going to give up. He would not stop turning the key, winding the watch, until turning it was physically impossible.

This happened sooner than expected. He wasn't at the top of his key turning game, he supposed. His fingers hurt.

He pulled the key from the hole, its teeth incandescent, burning white and orange, and laid it on the girl's chest, just above the heart, parallel to the shoulders. It burned through the sweater, leaving a ragged, black-edged hole. Once the key hit the skin underneath, it sank, as if dropped into water. He stared. He had not expected that. He knew the motions he had to make, the actions he had to take, but he didn't know the meaning behind them. He hadn't expected ignorance to be so frustrating.

He snapped the watch shut, and put it down. Then he drew his knees to his chest, hugging them close. He just had to wait. It shouldn't take long, right?

But the minutes ticked on, and the body showed no sign of moving. He started to worry. Had he done something wrong? Did he mess up? Was the watch a fake?

He bit down on his lower lip, his eyes stinging. What was he going to do? Before, he'd had a miraculous, magical object, a thing of power, a potent safety blanket. Now, all he had was a name he was sure wasn't his, a head injury, and a corpse.


	2. Ghost of a Chance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my gosh, I got WAY more of a response on the last chapter than I thought I would. Thank you so much to everyone who read, and an extra thank you for people who left feedback!
> 
> Additional thanks to Egg, who gave me the encouragement to post an original piece, and to deepwaterwritingprompts on tumblr, whose prompts I used as inspiration.

Alice loved flying.

Not flying, as in on a plane. She had never even seen a plane up close. Flying, as in under her own power. 

Little compared to bursting through the thick clouds that always overhung her hometown and seeing the beauty of the infinite blue sky, of a fiery sunset, or of the stars. Every time she flew, she was grateful she was lucky enough to have a reasonably enjoyable magic, rather the curses some people were saddled with. 

The only problem was, Alice couldn't _actually, physically_ fly. The Office of Nomenclature, which kept track of people with magic, classified her ability as 'astral projection.'

Her parents didn't like it when she spent 'too long' outside her body. They thought it was unhealthy, which was ridiculous and stupid. 

Hence Alice's clandestine trips to the park. 

Every Wednesday, she would bike there, go to a nice, secluded footbridge, lay down her coat, sit, and step out of her body. If it wasn't raining too much, that is.

Alice couldn't imagine _not_ being able to shed her body like a pair of too-tight shoes. She'd had her magic for too long.

But, right now, she was wishing she had never gotten her magic, or, at least, that she had listened to her parents about limiting her use of it, because things had gone terribly, terribly wrong. 

Her body was gone.

She bit down hard on her lower lip and ran her hands through her hair. Right. Okay.

Could she have misremembered where she sat down? No, her coat was still there. 

Had she fallen off?

Although Alice didn't see how that could have happened without the railing breaking, she swooped under the bridge and started searching the stream. Nothing. No sign of her body.

Oh, jeez, had she floated downstream? Had the current carried her away? The stream was shallow and full of rocks, and the current didn't seem nearly strong enough, but what did she know? Not enough to keep track of her _own body,_ clearly!

As quickly as possible, she flew downstream, all the way to the first, then the second, severe bend. But her body just wasn't there. Frustrated, Alice pulled at her hair as it floated around her head. 

This was bad. Extremely bad. 

Had she been kidnapped? She'd probably been kidnapped. What anyone would want with a comatose body was beyond her, but this was why her parents had told her not to use her magic in public spaces. Argh! She was so dumb!

But, maybe the people who had kidnapped her were still around? If she could find them, find her body, at least she'd have the possibility of escape. 

A kidnapper would need a car. A getaway vehicle. A mode of transportation. Unless they wanted to haul her all the way to their shady kidnapper hideout on foot. 

Alice cut through the brush and the trees, back to the parking lot. Except for her bike, it was as empty as always. She flew out to the road. No cars. 

If she'd been in her real body, she'd have bitten through her lip. 

Alright. She had to calm down, and stop thinking about worst-case scenarios. What was the best-case scenario?

Easy. Her parents had found her and taken her home. They'd probably yell at her when she got back, and she'd be grounded forever, but she'd be fine.

But if her parents had taken her, they'd have taken her jacket, too, and they would have left a note.

No! No panic! She just hadn't looked hard enough. Her body _had_ to be nearby.

Back at the bridge, she paused, hovering over the ground. Where was she even going to start?

A yelp and a splash echoed from upstream, answering her question. 

Ha! Must be her kidnapper! Great!

Wait, no, not great. Alice didn't want to be kidnapped. That sucked. 

At least it wouldn't be too hard to catch up to them. The shout had sounded close, and she was, like, a hundred pounds.

She flew through a few low-hanging branches, and immediately focused on movement. Kidnapper!

Except, he was her age. 

And very dirty.

And didn't have any shoes. 

Okay, he might not be her kidnapper. Another victim?

What was he looking at, anyway?

She turned her attention to what had arrested his, and-

Oh, GOD!

A person! A person floating face-down in the water. Oh, no, oh, jeez, oh, gosh. That- That was a dead body! She had never seen a dead body.

Was that her sweater? Was that her- _That was her sweater._ THAT WAS HER SWEATER. Why was a- Why was a dead person wearing her... her sweater. 

She watched, frozen, as the boy pulled the body out of the stream. Meanwhile, her brain chose to focus on inanities. Like how blue the boy's eyes were.

The boy flipped the body over. Oh. It _was_ her body.

Her dead body. 

This couldn't be happening. There were too many things she hadn't done yet! Like (legally) drive a car! Or graduate! Or- Or-

Her outrage petered out as another horrific thought smacked her over the back of her head. 

She couldn't be stuck like this.

Could she?

No, she'd go insane! No one could see her when she was like this, no one could hear her, or talk to her, or touch her. As much as she loved flying, doing it forever wasn't worth _this._

She almost missed the boy take out the watch. She stared at it, willing it to take her mind off her predicament, even for a second. 

Oh, _gross._

Alice shielded her face with her hands, but peered through the gaps between her fingers. She could have gone her whole life without seeing that. 

Technically, she had. Wow. Graveyard humor, and she hadn't even been buried yet.

The boy put the bloody key in the watch, and started turning it. Maybe it was a magic thing? An especially creepy one?

Her hands fell away from her face in shock when the boy dropped the key on her chest and it _burned through her sweater._

Whelp. She was done. Dead, and doomed to an eternity of insanity, but done.

Something tugged on her, and she abruptly found herself back in her body. 

Alice snapped into a sitting position. The boy flinched backwards, lost balance, and would have fallen into the stream, except that Alice caught him. 

Okay. So, she wasn't done. Cool. This was cool. 

Alice immediately took back all of the nasty things she had thought about the boy. He'd brought her back to life. If that didn't earn him the benefit of the doubt, nothing would. 

First things first, she needed a hug, and the boy looked like he did, too. 

"Thank you," she said, through chattering teeth. "Thank you." She pulled back, but kept her hands on his shoulders. "How did you do it?" she asked. "I mean, I was watching-"

"Watching?" asked the boy, who looked a little spooked. 

"Yeah! My magic lets me astrally project, so I was still here when I was," she looked down, "dead."

"What?"

"Astrally project. Like, leave my body," explained Alice, as the boy stared at her blankly. "Sort of travel around as a soul, or a ghost. My name is Alice Lan Linh. That's Alice, like Alice in Wonderland, and Linh, which means spirit, so you see where my magic comes from. Your name must be really interesting, if you can bring back people who are dead."

The boy shook his head slowly, his eyebrows drawn together. "What does my name have to do with anything?"

"It's what decides what your magic is," said Alice, slowly. She took her hands away. 

"The watch brought you back. I didn't make it."

"Oh. Well. What's your name, anyway?" asked Alice, expectantly. When the boy didn't respond, she flashed him a smile. Hopefully it didn't look too fake. "Like, I'd like to know the name of the guy who saved my life."

The boy grimaced, and raised his hand to touch his hair. His fingers came away with red on them.

"I don't, um, remember much from more than a couple hours ago. I think I hit my head."

"Amnesia?"

"I guess?"

"I thought it only worked like that in TV shows."

The boy shrugged.

"So, asking you if you saw who or what killed me..?"

The boy shrugged, and gestured to Alice's throat. "It looked like you were strangled. There were bruises. They're gone, now."

Gingerly, Alice touched her throat. It felt normal, not even tender. Her hands drifted down to the watch chain.

"What even is this, anyway?" she asked. 

"Lazarus Watchman's masterpiece."

That took a few seconds to sink in.

"What!" The boy winced away from the shout, but Alice kept going. "I thought that was a myth! An urban legend!" An urban legend with a higher death toll than the freaking Iliad. 

Okay, that was an exaggeration, but Lazarus Watchman's masterpiece was still the local version of the Golden Apple of Eris. Alice put her hands on the chain, intent on pulling it off and throwing it far, far away. 

"No! Keep it!"

"I can't keep it, it's a legend! A bad one! Well, not, like, narratively, but a bad one to be in!

"You'll die!"

Alice froze. "What?"

"I don't know what anything you just said means, but if you take that off, you'll die again. If it gets too far away from you, you'll die."

"Oh." Alice very carefully let go of the chain. "Okay." She would sort through the implications of that later.

The boy sighed in relief. "Great. Uh. Do you know the way to a town or something?"

"What?"

"Head injury. Probably some other things, too."

"Oh. Right. You need the clinic." She stood up, slowly. Ow, she was stiff. Better than being _a_ stiff. "Well?" she said, looking down at the boy, who was still sitting on the ground.

"I think I need help," he said, sheepishly.

Alice pulled him up out of the mud with a squelch. He had a harder time staying balanced than Alice did, and she eventually offered him her shoulder. 

"Thanks," he said, rather breathlessly.

"No problem." She'd be a pretty trashy person if she didn't help the guy who brought her back from the dead.

"Where are we going?"

"This way," she took a few steps downstream. "We're in the park. There's a walking path, a rest area, and a bridge over the stream. I was on the bridge when I went astral. I thought I might have fallen off at first, but, you can't fall into the water then float _upstream,_ can you?" Her laugh was a little hysterical. The situation was definitely getting to her.

"Are you okay?"

"No. Distract me."

"What?"

"I don't want to think about how I was murdered."

"Oh," said the boy in a tone of understanding. "Um. Tell me about magic."

Excellent. Magic was just like the weather. Better, even. The weather was always the same, here. Except, she had better start this out as if she was explaining to someone who had never seen the weather. Right.

"It's in the water," she said. "There's a well. _The_ Well. It's magic. If you drink the water from the Well, or water mixed with water from the Well, the magic gets into you."

"A magic well. Like, a wishing well?"

"Wishing is the name of our town."

"You're kidding."

"Wish I was."


	3. Called by Name

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Thank you for all your support as I'm posting this! It feels really great to have your original work get love. I'm still serious about the criticism bit, though. If anything feels weird, please tell me. 
> 
> I hope you all continue to enjoy this.

"So, um, Alice?" he said, working the words in between heavy breaths.

"Yeah?"

"D'you have, like, a car, or something? A phone?"

"Dude, do I look old enough to- Oh, shoot, I do have a phone, one sec." She stopped abruptly, rooting in her pocket, and he almost tripped. She caught him. "Sorry. Um. No on the phone. Heck. My mom is going to kill me. This," she said, dangling the rectangle of broken glass and plastic between two fingers, "was brand new."

It must have been. He wouldn't have recognized it as a phone if Alice hadn't told him. Unless it was simply too broken to recognize. "Car?"

"I have a bicycle."

"With a skirt?"

"It isn't as uncomfortable as people think. The park's right on the main road to the grocery store, though. We can wave someone down, no problem. Probably. If we wait long enough. If we can't," she paused mid-sentence, panting, "I can pedal to the store or the library, or wherever. Don't worry."

The bridge came into view after another few minutes, and the two teens scrambled the rest of the way up the bank, and onto the path. They sat for a few minutes, catching their breath.

"You know," started Alice.

"I don't."

"Right." She paused. "You should pick a name to use, even if you don't remember yours."

"Why?"

"Because names are important."

"Because of the magic?"

"Yeah, and no one will trust you without a name. They'll think you're hiding your magic."

"Do you think that?"

"I don't know. But you brought me back to life, so..." she trailed off and shrugged. "You should _probably_ still tell the police, but that's up to you. And maybe Jason, so he can fix you."

"Who's Jason?"

"Oh. The doctor. All the doctors here are called Jason, or Iason, or Jace. It's the only reliable healing name. Once, the Office of Nomenclature got someone to name their kid Aesculapius, but apparently he just got weird snake powers, and no one wanted to try it again."

"Huh."

Alice groaned and pushed herself into a sitting position. "Come on, the rest area is just a little further. They've got a bathroom, and a drinking fountain." With that for motivation, they got up and pressed on. 

By the time they got to the rest area, the sky was growing dark, but it turned out that they didn't have to go out into the street to wave a car. A minivan was pulling into the park's small parking lot. He sagged in relief. Alice tensed.

"That's my mom," she hissed, urgently. "Quick, come up with a name!"

"I don't know any names, except yours, Watchman's, and- and one other!" He wasn't sure if he should even mention that name. It felt like a secret. 

"Then use that," whispered Alice as the car came to a halt. She stuffed the watch down her shirt, hiding it, though not terribly effectively. 

"I can't, it's not mine and weird."

"It can't be that bad. What is it?"

The woman in the minivan shut off the car and opened the door. She looked somewhere between panicked and furious. Her hair was blond, her eyes were blue, and her features were prominent. In other words she didn't look like Alice at all.

"Brandon Adrian Grant Walker-Rose," he said, in a single breath. 

Alice flinched. "What the- No. _Don't_ use that. I'll make something up. _Why_ do you remember that name out of _literally everything_?"

"I don't-"

"Alice!" cried the woman, unfolding herself from the car. She was also _very_ tall.

"Are you sure she's your mom?" he asked, confused. 

"Yes, shut up, I'm thinking."

"Where have you been? You were supposed to get home hours ago! Your father and I have been worried sick!" The woman stopped dead a few feet from him and Alice. She looked Alice up and down, then ran the last few steps. "Alice," she said, tilting the girl's chin up with her hands, "what happened? You're soaking wet! And who is this?" She paused. "Is that _blood?_ "

" _This_ ," said Alice, rather loudly. "This is, um. This is _Alex._ Yeah. Alex. I was walking in the back of the park, and I saw Alex fall down a hill and hit his head. He's hurt pretty bad and he's been saying all kinds of weird things. We have to take him to the clinic."

The woman's eyes flicked back and forth between the two of them. "Get in the car," she said, turning, clicking a button button on her key fob. The back door slid open with a beep and a whir.

"Alex? Really?" he whispered. The only phonetic difference between Alex and Alice was an extra 'k' sound.

"I panicked, okay? It isn't like you were going to come up with anything better." Alice boosted him into the car, and pushed him across the isle into the far seat.

His breath caught in his throat. Every one of his muscles tensed and froze. He couldn't _see_ anything wrong, but he knew, just _knew,_ they were going to-

"Buckle up," said Alice.

"What?" he asked, voice high and trembling. 

"Buckle- Oh, here." She reached across him, and pulled the belt hanging there down over his shoulder and to his hip, where it snapped into the receptacle there with a sound like the jaws of death closing. 

He made a faint, squeaky sound in the back of his throat, and tried to relax. This was irrational. Seat belts made driving in cars safer. It was common knowledge. So, why did he feel trapped?

The engine growled to life, startling him. His hands tightened around the seatbelt across his chest, and he flinched as the car shuddered forward. 

This was all the pain and fear from earlier getting the better of him, that's all. He forced himself to let go of the seatbelt, and put his hands down firmly to rest on the chair under him. 

"Why didn't you call?" asked Alice's mother. 

"I tried!" protested Alice, "but I wasn't able to get a signal, and then, um, we slipped into the stream, that's why we're wet, and I dropped my phone, and, well, it kinda broke."

"Of course it did. Sh-oot! Shoot. We left your bike!"

"Oh," said Alice. "I guess we did."

The woman sighed, heavily. "We'll have to pick it up tomorrow," she said. "What was your name- Alex. Are you feeling alright?"

He forced his hands to unclench from the edge of the seat, and discovered that the fur, seam, and stitching had left stinging impressions on his hands. "Y-yeah. Just a little-" there was a word for this, right? "-carsick."

"Well," said Alice, patting him lightly on the shoulder. "The clinic is only another mile or so. Don't throw up."

He nodded, trying to focus on her and not the deathtrap they were currently imprisoned in.

"You know, your eyes are, like, really blue."

No, he didn't, actually, but his voice was stuck all the way down his throat, so he couldn't tell Alice that. In fact, the idea that he had blue eyes seemed wrong, somehow. Like they were supposed to be an entirely different color. 

Alice's eyes were dark brown. A pleasant color. 

"How do you two know each other?" asked Alice's mother. "School? Who are his parents? We should call them."

"I don't," admitted Alice. "Never met him before today. And he's been sort of out of it, with the head injury. Barely got him to tell me his name."

Something flew through the air and landed on the floor between him and Alice. He blinked, jarred, and leaned forward to see a little blue purse.

"Call the sheriff," said Alice's mother. 

Alice bent sideways and scooped up the purse. "Where's your phone?"

"Second pocket."

The phone Alice extracted was entirely different from hers, a shiny little clamshell. She started pressing buttons, and a minute later she was talking to someone on the other end, explaining the situation. 

He stopped listening somewhere in the middle. His head hurt, and he couldn't shake his visions of the car suddenly swerving off the road, into a ditch, and killing them all. 

"Okay, bye," said Alice, pressing a button on the phone. "I'm going to call the clinic now." She hit another button. "Hey, Bethany, uh, we've sort of got an emergency... This is Alice Linh... Not me, no, not Ashton, either... Someone else, jeez. We're going to be there, in, like, a minute. Is Jason there? Oh, good... Yes, we need him... Like, a massive concussion or something. I'm not a doctor, that's why I'm calling you." She pulled the phone away from her face. "On a scale of one to ten, what's your pain level?"

He blinked tiredly at Alice. "A seven, maybe? Not a lot to base it on..."

"Right," said Alice, as her mother pulled the car into a driveway, "he says seven and, I almost forgot, he has amnesia.. We're pulling in, now."

The car came to a stop, and he would have jumped right out, except, somewhere between the park and now, he had become too dizzy to move effectively. He didn't notice the car door open, but he did spot the abrupt presence of several extra people and a stretcher. He fumbled at the seatbelt, but it wouldn't disengage. Why could he never..? He squeezed his eyes shut. The thought dead-ended in a missing memory.

"Not yet," said one of the people, a young man with sandy brown hair and a short beard. "Head injuries are tricky, and we don't want you moving until we can be sure that won't exacerbate them. My name is Jason, and I'm a nurse practitioner here at the Wishing Clinic. What's your name?"

"Alex," he said, after a moment. "I'm Alex."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The boy finally gets a name! Hooray!


	4. the Problem with Wells

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone who left feedback on the last chapter! This chapter is a bit longer, and has a lot of exposition and dialogue, so I'm somewhat nervous about it. I hope it answers some of the questions you had.

They went through a door, down a hallway, and through another door, finishing in a little room with an examination table in the center and anatomy posters on the walls. 

"Here we are," said Jason. "Now, I'm going to take another look at that head injury of yours, and find out if you need stitches." He looked up at the other people who had helped bring Alex in. "Thanks for your help, I can take him from here."

"Stitches?" asked Alex, apprehensively. He brought a hand up to tug on the neck brace Jason had insisted was standard for head injuries. 

"I don't think you will," said Jason, peering at Alex's scalp with a touch of near-sightedness. "We will need to clean this. Tell me if I'm hurting you, okay, Alex?"

"Yes, okay," said Alex. "Alex isn't my name, though."

Jason stilled. "Oh?"

"Alice made it up, because I told her I didn't remember mine. She said it was important to have a name, because of the magic."

"She told you about magic, did she?" The disapproval was apparent in his voice. "She should know better. You might be from out of town. I've certainly never seen you before."

"I think I already knew, a bit," said Alex quickly, not wanting Alice to be in trouble for helping him and answering his questions. "It sounded right." He had also started their acquaintance by using magic to bring her back from the dead, so.

"I hope so," said Jason, moving back into Alex's line of sight. "Alex. Do you still want to be called Alex?"

"Yes, please."

"Do you remember about the Border? The Border clan?"

There was a tickle at the edge of his mind. "A bookstore?" he asked. "That's a bookstore, right?"

Pain, of the kind associated with awkward social situations and inconvenient information flashed across Jason's face. "Well. No. Not a bookstore. The Border is a curse on Wishing - that's the name of this town - that prevents people who are aware of magic from leaving. Alice shouldn't have told you about magic, because you may not be from here. You may have been able to leave."

"I think I already knew," said Alex, again, more forcefully, thoughts spinning as he tried to figure out what to say to get Alice out of trouble. "Actually, _actually,_ I think _I_ was the one that brought it up. Names, and drinking water, and stuff." He crossed his arms and winced. 

Jason gave him a pitying look and returned to cleaning his head injury. "Alright, I believe you," he said, in an overly-soothing tone that indicated he believed nothing of the sort. "This shouldn't take too much longer. My name, Jason, is derived from a Greek work that means 'to heal.' Thus, my magic is healing."

"Right. I think Alice mentioned that, maybe?" He still felt fuzzy, for lack of a better word. "Do you think my memory will come back, once you heal m- Ow!" He pulled away from Jason as a sharp pain shot through his head, and he jarred his chin and collarbone against the neck brace. "Owww," he complained again. 

"Sorry, sorry," said Jason. "These topical analgesics aren't working as well as I'd hoped," he muttered.

"What?"

"Painkillers," explained Jason. "Your memories _may_ come back. They may not. I've never tested my magic normal amnesia." He laid a piece of bloody gauze on the counter behind him. "You have some stones and splinters in there. I'm going to have to use the tweezers. This will hurt."

"Can't you just magic them out?" asked Alex, with just a bit of a whine. He deserved the whine, as far as he was concerned. He hurt everywhere already. 

"I'm afraid not. I can only accelerate normal healing, so if there's something that would prevent it, like, for example, a rock in the wound..."

Not only did the cleaning hurt, it hurt a _lot._ But it did feel much better after Jason had finished packing in the antibiotic cream and bandaged everything.

Then, of course, came questions, probing Alex for other injuries, and exploring the limits of his memory. Alex, of course, had a few questions of his own. 

"How does your magic work?" asked Alex. "I mean, I haven't seen you do anything, but I'm definitely feeling better."

"You mean, other than bandaging your head wound, giving you medicine, or working on these?" Jason pointed at Alex's shin, which was purple with bruises.

Alex organized his features into what he hoped was a suitably impressive glare.

Jason relented. "I don't have to do anything to use my magic other than decide to use it. Some people do. It depends. To head off your next question, my magic is area of effect. Everyone within a few meters of me benefits. However, I can't do a thing about diseases. Other magic is limited by line of sight or touch, or is tied to locations, or conditions..." Jason trailed off, staring at something on the counter. 

"What is it?" asked Alex. He tried to lean around to see, but was hampered by the neck brace.

"Nothing," said Jason, quickly gathering whatever it was into his hands. Something small and red fluttered to the linoleum floor. "I misplaced something, that's all." He dropped the object into the garbage, followed by more trash, then removed his gloves and washed his hands, before covering everything in the bin with a thick layer of paper towels.

Whatever Jason had 'misplaced' had to be pretty embarrassing. Most of those paper towels were bone dry.

Jason pulled on a new pair of gloves with a snap and whirled to face Alex. "Listen," he said. "When you meet with the sheriff, don't tell him Alex isn't your real name."

"The sheriff?"

"Sheriff Sullivan. He'll be coming down to make sure you know the rules, he does that for everyone new, and he'll be trying to figure out who you are. Don't tell him your name isn't Alex." Jason spoke quickly, intensely.

"But won't it be harder for them to find me, if I do that?" Alex asked. "Wait. Do _you_ know who I am? Did- Did I do something bad?" Something bad enough that he needed to hide his name from law enforcement?

What could he possibly have done? 

Jason bit his lip, his beard bristling oddly. "Sheriff Sullivan is a good man, but he tends to... overreact. I can sympathize. I suppose I would be suspicious, too, if my job was to keep peace in a town where criminals can set things on fire with their eyes or turn you into a toad with a thought and a glance. I'm sure your parents are looking for you, and, with the amnesia, you can be forgiven for mistaking your name. Besides, you _might_ be an Alex.."

Alex doubted it, but the name was growing on him.

"Alright. Now, we can get rid of this." Jason began to tug on the Velcro straps on the neck brace. "Then we're going to do a few more cognition tests, and you can use our shower. How does that sound?"

"Fine," said Alex, rubbing his neck. He hadn't been wearing the brace all that long but his neck still felt weird. "What about these?" he waved at the bandages.

"I'll replace them when you come out," said Jason. We also have some clean clothes, donations, you see. Now, our first test..."

The tests were more numerous than Jason had implied, and took longer than Alex thought they should. True, this was partially because his sense of balance had utterly abandoned him, and standing up made his stomach do weird things, but that didn't stop him from being thoroughly frustrated. The idea of a shower, of being _clean,_ had grown in his mind, and he desperately wanted to get rid of the grime that seemed to coat both the inside and outside of his skin. 

The promised shower was further delayed when Jason spent several minutes rummaging through a closet for Alex-sized clothing. 

But, finally, Alex was allowed to go into the bathroom. 

The first thing that caught his eye when he closed the door was the mirror. More accurately, his reflection in the mirror. 

He didn't recognize the face. At all. It moved when he moved, just as a reflection was supposed to, but he didn't feel any sense of familiarity. He leaned closer.

Alice was right. His eyes were blue. Very blue. He frowned, uneasy. 

He was thirsty. That was all. He wasn't doubting his right to his own eyes. That would be ridiculous. 

After a moment of deliberation, he took a few swallows of the tap water. Probably, he should have asked Jason for a drink, but he didn't want to bother him. He'd already taken up a lot of Jason's time. 

But the sensation didn't leave him. He used another handful of water to wipe away some of the dirt on his face, and looked back up.

He looked _better,_ but he still didn't recognize himself.

Could he be some kind of body snatcher? A shape shifter? That would be sufficiently bad to warrant the sheriff's attention. He _was_ dealing with magic. Even the weirdest ideas had to be considered. Gosh, being an amnesiac shape shifter would be _terrible._ He'd never figure out who he was!

When he came out of the bathroom, cleaner, much refreshed, and clad in dry clothes, Jason was nowhere in sight. Instead, there was another man, old and grizzled, but tall and straight-backed, facing away from the bathroom door. He wore a rather fantastic hat, like something out of a western. 

He didn't see Alex. He was far too absorbed in a conversation he was having on his phone. 

"... no, Ismene. I'm not going to 'let you have a look.' How did you even find out about him? None of my people would give you the time of day."

'Him.' Was the man talking about Alex? Was this the sheriff Jason had been talking about?

Cautiously, Alex took a step back, swinging the door closed to hide himself. Eavesdropping wasn't nice, but if the conversation was about him, it was his right to know what they were saying. Wasn't it? Besides, he needed all the advantages he could get. 

"Whose eyes are you using?" demanded the man, agitated. 

No, that wasn't disturbing at all. Alex swallowed, heavily.

"The hell it isn't." The man's voice had swung from annoyed and angry to cold and hard. "People have a right to privacy. What do you want with him? Tell me, or I'll hang up."

Maybe this conversation wasn't about Alex. It sounded like the man wanted to protect whoever it was, and he didn't even know Alex yet. Guilt began to stir in the pit of Alex's stomach. He shouldn't be listening to this. 

"It could as easily be 'to defend.'" He half raised his free hand to put air-quotes around the last two words, before putting it on his hip.

Alex's gaze followed it down, and only then did he spot the gun holstered on the man's belt.

This had _better_ be the sheriff. 

"What do you want help with? Being a creep? Can't be help doing your _job,_ because I have yet to see any evidence that you even try to keep the water where it's supposed to be."

Water had to do with magic. Possibly. Or this could be a fight over pluming. Pluming could be serious business. 

Yeah.

"Then what?" A pause. "You must be joking. The Border? Do you know how many times the Office of Nomenclature has tried to put together a name that get rid of that thing? Dozens, Ismene. Dozens. One family even changed their last name to Border, so their children would be born with it. It _didn't work."_

Having finished this small rant, the man fell silent again, breathing heavily. He had turned slightly, so Alex could see that he wore reflective wraparound sunglasses.

"You don't know what his magic is. It could be anything. Even _building_ barriers." The man punctuated his sentences with tight, angry gestures. 

Listening intently, Alex could begin to pick up the tiny sounds of speech from the phone, though not individual words.

"That being?" Another beat, where the person on the other end answered. "Right. Of course." The words were laden with sarcasm. "How could I _forget._ Because you work _so hard_ to ensure that, don't you?"

Alex wondered if he should close the door and hide. With every sentence he liked this man less. Why? The animosity clear in every word, or something else? 

"Talk to me about _methods_ when half the town isn't cursed! In the meantime, I don't want to see you anywhere near-!" He broke off. "Excuse me?"

A minute ticked by in relative silence. 

"I will consider it." The man snorted. "Hardly." He pulled the phone away from his face in a violent motion, and put it away. 

To Alex's immense relief, Jason walked into sight at the end of the hallway. He had not been looking forward to hiding in the bathroom until this man decided to leave. Bracing himself, he stepped out. 

This time, the man turned. 

"Ah, Sheriff Sullivan," said Jason, now halfway down the hallway and drawing closer with long, rapid strides. "This is Alex. Alex, this is Sheriff Sullivan."

Alex tried a smile. The sheriff, thankfully, smiled back. 

"So, Alex," said the sheriff in a falsely genial tone, "I hear you have amnesia."

"Yes," said Alex, clipping the end of the word. 

"You don't remember anything at all?"

"No. Except my name," he added, belatedly. 

"Well, Alex might be a common name, but Wishing isn't all that large of a town. I'm sure we'll find your parents before too long." He rubbed the side of his nose. "Jason, do you have a room we can use?"

An odd look passed over Jason's face, largely obscured by his beard. "Yes," he said, pointing to a door to his left. "Like I said, it's a quiet night."

The sheriff nodded and strode purposefully to the door. Alex hesitated, looking to Jason.

"Um," he said, eloquently. "Where's Alice?" He was a little ashamed he hadn't asked after her earlier. 

"She and her mother are out in the waiting room," said Jason, with a thin smile. "She insisted on staying until she could speak to you."

That was a relief. Alex sagged. 

"You should go in. He's always in a mood when Ismene calls."

"Oh," said Alex. He hadn't quite realized that the sheriff wanted him to follow. He didn't want to be alone with the sheriff, but if he had to, he wanted to get it over with. 

Behind the door was an examination room, albeit one much cleaner than the one Alex had been treated in. He'd left a lot of mud on the floor and bench. 

The sheriff didn't seem inclined to sit, so Alex took the chair in the corner. "So, um," he said, looking up at the much, much taller sheriff and regretting the decision, "what, um."

"You know about magic," said the sheriff. "However, you are also suffering from memory loss. As such, it falls to me to remind you of the laws we have invented with regards to magic."

Alex nodded. That sounded fair.

"The first and most important rule is to not speak about magic to anyone who does not already know about it, and not to practice it where outsiders might notice. There is a curse on Wishing that prevents those who know of magic from leaving. We don't want to trap anyone here."

"Okay," said Alex, when it became apparent the sheriff wanted a response. "That makes sense."

"The second rule is, do not drink unfiltered water. Do you remember the Well?"

"It's where magic comes from?" He winced as it came out a question. Alice had said something like that, anyway. 

The sheriff nodded, pleased. "The Well is the source of all magic in Wishing. Anyone who drinks from it gains magic. Sometimes, it floods, and the magic gets into the groundwater, the streams, and such." His brow furrowed. "The Wardens are supposed to stop that. They do not. As many people in town use wells, that is something of a problem. Filtering the water reduces the risk to a negligible amount. Of course, bottled water is safest."

"Safer?"

"It can be dangerous to have magic. Not only for others, but for yourself." He pulled his sunglasses down his nose to reveal a pair of inhuman, yellow eyes. "Even with a good name, the magic you receive can be unpleasant, unhealthy, or a downright curse." He hid his eyes again. 

"Oh," said Alex, nervously interlacing his toes. He thought of all the times he'd drunk unfiltered water already and decided not to mention any of them. 

Maybe he _was_ a shape shifting criminal. It would explain his willingness to break the law and lie about it.

"Although, that rule can be waived with permission from the Office of Nomenclature. They keep track of magicians and their powers. That leads us to our next rule. Do not use magic on anyone without their permission. Unless," he raised a finger, "it is to save their life or limb, and they are unable to give permission, or if is to stop them from harming someone. The fourth rule, and you are unlikely to run into this in the near future, is that if you have children, you must have approval from the Office of Nomenclature before naming them. Do you understand so far?"

"Yes," said Alex, forcing himself to look at the sheriff's face.

"Now, the last basic rule is, do not attempt to raise the dead."

Joy. Another law he had broken before he'd even known it existed.

"Why?" he asked.

"A number of reasons. Most resurrection magic is limited. Dozens of people were killed in fights over who would benefit. Everyone has loved ones they would like to bring back, and many believed killing the resurrected wasn't truly murder. There are still feuds going on until this day because of things that happened last time someone had that power," said the sheriff, bitterly. "Most of his creations have been destroyed at this point. You are unlikely to come across any."

Yeah. Right. Now he would be worrying about Alice getting randomly murdered over the watch. Awesome. Or specifically killed for being illegal. More awesome.

But back to the topic at hand. "So those are the only rules?" Five seemed like too few a number for something as complex and varied as magic. Assuming magic was complex and varied. It certainly felt like it should be.

"No, but the others are more along the lines of regulations. Those five are enough for you to manage, until you can read the informational packet."

"The what?"

The sheriff smiled, and pulled a bundle of papers from inside his vest. "Despite our best efforts, outsiders are occasionally trapped here. This," he waved the papers, "may be mundane, but we can't let people blunder around without any guidance, can we?"

"I guess not," said Alex, shifting on the chair. He had a crick in his neck.

"This packet also includes information about sorcerers. That is, magic users who do _not_ follow those rules. They are dangerous and selfish, and are often outsiders who became trapped after learning of magic. Hence the packet. You should avoid sorcerers whenever possible."

"What if it isn't possible?" asked Alex, trying and failing to keep the challenge out of his voice. 

"Then, whatever you do, don't anger them. Some will kill you. Some will do worse."

Before Alex could ask what was worse than dying, the sheriff walked to the door. Alex hurried to copy him, glad to be leaving his presence. "I'll be taking you to the station," the sheriff said. "You can stay there until we find your parents, or you are placed with a family. We have cots there."

How wonderful. 

"Thank you," said Alex, even though staying at 'the station' was the very last thing he wanted. He looked at his feet. "Um, do you have shoes? I think I need shoes."

"I'll ask Jason," said the sheriff.


	5. One of Them a Brother

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again! (And so soon, too.)
> 
> Thank you for sticking with me and reading. I think the dialogue in this chapter is a bit better, but I'm not sure if I have realistic characterization or not.

After Alex had been supplied with a pair of shoes that didn't fit quite right, the sheriff escorted him to the waiting room.

Alice was having an impassioned discussion with her mother and a man who must be her father. Clearly, Alice had inherited her features and her height from him. 

"-got to take him, Dad," she said, "you didn't see him before. He looked so _alone_ and _scared._ "

So, the discussion was about him. Alex wasn't sure whether to be pleased or offended. 

Alice had changed her clothes since they had been in the car. They were dry, clean, and undamaged. Otherwise, they were exactly the same. A white sweater, a blue skirt, and stockings. 

Odd, but who was he to say anything? He was wearing borrowed clothes.

"Alice-" started the man.

"The station is boring and gross," she said, "and they don't have real beds, and criminals are there. If he comes with us, he can use Ashton's bed, or the guest bed, or the trundle, or the couch-"

"Alice!" interrupted the man. "Let me finish." He rubbed at the bridge of his nose, as if he had a headache, and caught sight of Alex and the sheriff. "Sheriff Sullivan," he said, distracted from whatever he had been about to say. His eyes flicked down, to Alex's, and held his gaze. "You must be Alex."

Alex nodded. 

"I'm Thuan Linh, Alice's father."

"Nice to meet you," said Alex. 

This wasn't going to turn into one of those 'stay away from my daughter' things, was it? He hoped not. He needed Alice's help to deal with... Well. Everything.

"Dad-" started Alice.

"Is it true, about his parents?" interrupted Alice's mother. "You haven't been able to find them?"

"Unfortunately," confirmed the sheriff. "Alex's head injury caused significant memory loss, according to Jason. He doesn't recall much beyond his first name."

"I suppose you'll be looking for a place to put him until you find them?" Mr. Linh asked with a sigh.

The sheriff raised an eyebrow above the rim of his sunglasses. "Yes?"

Mr. Linh had the look of a man about to do something he already regretted. "We have room. He can stay with us."

Behind her father, Alice grinned broadly. When Alec caught her eye, she gave him two thumbs up. 

Alex was unsure what that meant. Was it good? He felt like it was probably good. With a shaky smile, he returned the sign to her. 

"Thank you, Mr. Linh," said the sheriff, inclining his head. "You will need to sign some paperwork, I'm afraid, to make it official, but I'm sure you want to go home, after this ordeal. Especially Alice."

"No, no. We came in separate cars. Taylor, will you take Alice- Well, both of them I suppose- home? I'll take care of the paperwork. I suppose we need to go to the station?"

"Yes. I'll put a call in to expedite the paperwork." He glanced down at Alex. "Are you alright with this?"

Alex could see his reflection in the sheriff's sunglasses as he nodded, and swallowed, unsettled. "Yes, thank you. Thank you for taking me," he said to the Linhs. 

He didn't breathe easy until they were outside. Then, because apparently his difficulty with the car hadn't been a fluke or a coincidence, his breathing became uneasy once again. This time, at least, he managed to do the seatbelt on himself. 

"Did you really think I was alone and sad?" he whispered to Alice as her mother started the car. Anything to distract himself from the fact he was strapped into a fast-moving death machine. 

"Nah," she whispered back, "but it made Mom and Dad say yes, didn't it? You looked fine." She made a face. "Well, not _entirely_ fine." She then continued, at a louder volume, "You'll be sleeping in my brother, Ashton's bed."

"Won't he mind?"

"It isn't like he's using it."

"So, he's moved out?"

"No, he's, like, two years younger than me."

"He's a year and two months younger than you," said Mrs. Linh with the air of someone who had spent far too much time hearing variations on the same argument.

Now, how did he know what that sounded like? Did he have siblings?

"So, two years. He's two whole grades below me. Still in middle school. Practically a baby."

"Alice, if you want Ashton to let our guest use his room, you had better be nicer to him. Even if he doesn't use his bed, it's still _his_."

Alice groaned. "Yes, Mom. I will. Don't worry."

Alex frowned, trying to reason out why Alice's brother wouldn't use his bed if he still lived at home. Maybe he was a half brother, and usually lived with his other parent? Or did he have some kind of disease where he couldn't sleep laying down? Or did he just... not sleep?

If magic, then vampires. He was suddenly less enthusiastic about staying at Alice's house. 

"We're here," said Mrs. Linh, pulling into a gravel driveway. 

The Linh's house was sprawling and off-white in the twilight, but it was dwarfed and shadowed by dripping firs and cedars on all sides. A cracked concrete walk wound between the trees to a set of steps and a half-covered porch. Next to the door was a yellowed light. 

Alice's mother turned off the car. 

"Keys, keys, keys," said Alice leaning over her mother's seat as Alex fumbled with the seatbelt. Alice's mother sighed and handed her daughter the keys. "Yes!" exclaimed Alice, sliding the door open.

"Wait, Alice!" called Alex. He had managed to get stuck again. _Again._ Why did this keep happening? What was _wrong_ with him that he couldn't operate a seatbelt? "How does this work?"

Alice leaned over and clicked the button. "Like that." Then she bounced out of the car, and down the path.

"She has so much energy," said Mrs Linh to herself, before opening her own door.

Alex crawled out after them, still confused and stupid, and followed them up the steps, keeping a hand on the banister and his eyes on his feet. His borrowed shoes didn't feel right. If he had to wear them for any length of time, he'd have blisters, he was sure of it. 

Alice swung the door open and ran in. 

"Alice!" called her mother. "Come back here! You need to show Alex around!"

"I'm just getting Ashton!" Alice yelled back from the depths. "Ashton! Ashton! We have company!"

Mrs Linh sighed. "Shoes off inside the house."

"So I take them off outside?" He leaned on the lintel and bent to insert his fingers into the back of his ill-fitting shoe.

"Inside, we have an entryway. Here," she said, stepping over the threshold and motioning to something inside the door, "we have a bench."

Alice came running back as Alex finally freed himself from the shoes. A crow was sitting on her head. Alex froze, staring. Why was a crow inside the house? Was it a pet?

"This is Ashton," announced Alice. "Ashton, this is Alex. He's an amnesiac."

The crow cawed in greeting, flaring his wings.

Ashton was a crow? But he was in middle school. Did crows live that long? No, first, Alice had said he was her brother. How did that work? Was it poetic license? Was that what this was? Were the Linhs so attached to their pet that they called it part of their family and also sent it to school?

Seriously, poetic license but not how to work a seatbelt? What was his brain doing? That was just embarrassing.

"Hi," he said, deciding politeness was the best way to approach apparent insanity. "Thanks for letting me use your bed?" What would a bird need with a bed, anyway? Didn't they use perches?

"Oh, yeah. Almost forgot. Ashton is cursed. That's why he's a crow right now."

She forgot. She forgot that her brother had been turned into a crow. Okay.

"Is that... normal?" asked Alex, trying not to sound too weirded out.

"Sadly," said Mrs. Linh. "I'm going to start dinner. You two show Alex around."

"No problem, Mom," said Alice, brightly. "First stop, bathroom. Gotta wash your hands after being at the clinic."

With no further warning, she pulled Alex down a dim, picture-covered hallway, opened a door, and pushed Alex into the dark room beyond. Alice flipped on the lights, and Alex blinked hard several times, trying to get the brightness out of his eyes. He heard Alice slam the door shut. 

Wait. He turned. 

Alice was standing there, her back against the blue and white door, her brother on her head.

What?

Did she just shut herself into the _bathroom_ with him? Was this normal, too? No. Nope. No way. 

"Okay," said Alice, eyes flashing with enthusiasm, "now we can talk privately again, get down to business, clear a few things up." 

Her brother chittered. Alex took a step back. He didn't like how Alice was acting. 

"Clear what up?" he asked, backing up as far as he could without falling into the bathtub.

"Right. So, you know the sorcerer who cursed Ashton?" she asked. "The most wanted of sorcerers since Steven Border? The man who has cursed _literally_ hundreds of people?"

"No? I thought that we'd established the whole amnesia thing?" 

Ashton cawed menacingly.

"Do you _really_ not remember?"

Alex spread his hands in front of him, though he wasn't sure if the gesture was one of irritation, entreaty, or confusion. "I don't. I don't even know who 'Steven Border' _is_."

"He's the one who made it so we can't leave town!"

"I didn't know that!" This time, Alex's hands went up. 

Alice pursed her lips. "You said his name."

"What, Steven Border?"

"No! Earlier!"

"Lazarus Watchman? I thought he was dead." What would he curse people _with_ , anyway? Maybe he turned people into zombies.

"No! The other one! It's a weird thing to remember, when supposedly you don't remember your own name and need someone else to make one up for you."

"I don't! I already told you everything I remember," said Alex, taking his hair into fists and pulling. "What did I say?"

"Brandon Walker-Rose!" hissed Alice, like that should end the conversation entirely.

"What about him?"

" _He's_ the sorcerer who cursed Ashton!"

"That can't be right!"

"Why not?" demanded Alice, hands on her hips.

"It doesn't- It isn't- I don't know!" He sat down on the edge of the tub. "I don't know," he said again, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes. 

"Um," said Alice, awkwardly, "are you alright?"

"No!" he snapped. 

Because he wasn't alright. He _was_ alone and scared in a place he knew next to nothing about, and he had expected Alice to at least be an ally, if not a friend. His head still hurt, he couldn't manage to ride in a car without panicking, he was a criminal and _possibly_ a shape shifter, the doctor had told him not to trust the sheriff, the sheriff was having weird phone calls about him with a woman who possibly stole eyes, and now Alice was yelling him because he knew the name of the person who had cursed her brother. Who, by the way, was a crow.

He was rapidly reaching his limit.

Something crinkled in the pocket of his borrowed jacket and poked him in the side. Frustrated, he tore it out. 

Oh, right, the sheriff's informational packet. Which had information about sorcerers in the back. He flipped to the sorcerer section, full of mugshots and police sketches, and started turning pages. 

"He isn't the most wanted!" he said, six sorcerers in. 

"Well, he's number eight," said Alice, shifting her weight from foot to foot and not looking at Alex. 

"How do _you_ know?"

"They pass out a list at the beginning of the year. He _should_ be higher. Most of the other ones haven't been seen for ages, and they haven't cursed my brother, so- so I forget about them, okay?"

"That doesn't make it _true_ ," protested Alex, turning the pages. "You shouldn't say stuff like that if it isn't true."

Brandon Adrian Grant Walker-Rose couldn't be the most wanted sorcerer, but it was still a relief to hear Alice admit she was lying. Probably, he wouldn't be in here at all, and Alice was misremembering. Brandon was a common name.

He reached the eighth entry. 

His heart plummeted. He knew that face. He knew that face, for all that it was rendered as a photocopy of a sketch. He recognized it in a way that he hadn't recognized his own features. He knew those dark eyes, and that long nose, and the curl of those lips. He knew that face. He just didn't know _how._

"I have to find him," he said, the words forming with the thought. "I have to find him," he repeated, "before it's too late."


	6. Binding Contract

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a while since I worked on this... Other projects got the best of me. I want to try I finish this for Camp Nanowrimo, though. Wish me luck?
> 
> Thank you for reading!

"Are you crazy?" demanded Alice. "Do you even-" she broke off and snatched the packet out of Alex's hand, turning it to face him and jabbing it with a finger. "Do you even see this list of magics? These are just the things people have _confirmed_ he can do, Alex. Do you _want_ to be turned into a crow? Or beaten up by his weird puppet people?"

"Puppet-? You mean the simulacra?"

"Who cares what they're called!" exclaimed Alice, throwing her hands up. 

Ashton had to make an undignified series of flaps to stay on her head. He cawed unhappily. 

"Sorry, sorry," said Alice, drawing herself straight. She turned a suspicious gaze on Alex. "How do you even know about the sim-simoo-"

"Simulacra? That's what the list calls them," said Alex, pointing at the paper in front of him and an entry labeled 'creation of simulacra.' 

"Oh." Alice blinked several times. "I'm sorry, I'm being mean. You weren't faking being hurt and you weren't faking- faking the other thing, what you did. I'm just..." Alice seemed to deflate. "I'm scared, I guess."

"Me too," said Alex. He drew up one leg so his heel rested on the edge of the bathtub and hugged it. 

"Why do you have to find him?" asked Alice.

"To stop him?" The suggestion felt weak to Alex, but he knew it was one Alice would accept. He hoped this didn't count as lying. "I don't know. I don't know anything. Not why I was in the park, why I wasn't wearing shoes, why I had the watch, why you were dead-"

Ashton cawed.

"Argh! You weren't supposed to mention that!"

"What? Why?"

"Why? Why, he asks, like it isn't obvious," said Alice, dramatically placing her hand over her heart. She froze, suddenly, midway through the motion, spun on her heel, dislodging Ashton entirely, and fidgeted with the watch chain. 

Ashton flew over to the shower curtain rod, and glared at Alice, ruffling his feathers. He did seem concerned, though. But Alex might have been reading too far into it. He couldn't imagine a scenario for his past that would make him adept at reading crow body language. 

Also: Should he say something to Alice? Even though her back was turned, he could see her reflection in the mirror on the door. Her face was all twisted up, as if she were about to cry.

"Because," she said, taking the decision out of his hands, "you don't bring something like that up. You said, you said, if I take this off, I die, right?" Her voice cracked and crackled. "What if someone wants it? They're going to kill me, yeah?" She glared at Alex over her shoulder, but her the emotion behind the expression quickly changed from anger to fear and shock. "Kill me. Someone already tried to do that, didn't they?"

"They didn't try," said Alex, because he was an idiot and had no idea how to fix this. "They actually killed you."

"Shut up!" hissed Alice, turning to face Alex fully. She was shaking. "What if they try again?"

"Well, as long as they don't take off the watch, it'll bring you back."

"R-really? That's conv- No, no, that's not what I meant." She rubbed at her eyes. Impressively, she had yet to cry. "What do we do about the person who killed me?" Ashton cawed. "I'll explain later, Ashton, jeez. What if it was Walker-Rose?" She buried her face in her hands and groaned.

"That's another reason we should find him," said Alex, even if he didn't believe for a moment that Brandon Adrian Grant Walker-Rose had killed Alice. Or anyone else, for that matter. "To stop a murderer." The words tasted sour on his tongue. 

Alice raised her head and surveyed Alex, her eyes narrowed with more than tears. "Point," she said. She bit her lower lip. "But... he probably isn't. There isn't any record of him actually killing anyone. He curses people, steals stuff, and beats up deputies, but that's it."

"Oh," said Alex, happier. "So, that's good?"

Alice wasn't listening. She started to pace, tapping her chin. The bathroom was too small even for someone as short as she was to take more than a few paces, so the effect was more like that of spinning rapidly. Alex wondered if she'd make herself dizzy. 

"If someone killed me once, they'd do it again. The park is pretty out of the way, but I go there all the time, so it probably wasn't random chance." She was speaking to herself more than Alex and Ashton. "I can't- I can't tell anyone about this, either, I-" She took in a deep shuddering breath. "Alex, tell me the truth. Why do you want to find Walker-Rose? Because I can't believe you want to go after him to 'stop him.'"

Alex shrugged. "I feel like I have to."

"Like, mind control 'have to?'"

"No!" said Alex, sharply. "No, I mean..." he said more softly. "I mean, I think he might know who I am." He looked down. "I don't think Sheriff Sullivan isn't going to find my parents."

"Okay. Okay, I can see that. That's less crazy than what you were saying before." She crossed her arms. "Let's make a deal."

"A deal?"

"Yeah, like a contract, or something."

"Or something?"

"What are you, an echo? We both want something, right? I'm not about to tell Mom and Dad," she waved her hand vaguely, " _everything._ They'll be furious if they find out I've been using the park as a step off point for astral travel, and I'll be grounded forever. You can't tell anyone you're looking for Walker-Rose, because they'll either think you're nuts or that you're working for him."

"Like you did," said Alex, squeezing his leg tighter. 

Watching Alice's mouth twist and cheeks turn pink hurt, but her distrust hurt, too, and hurt more. Alex sucked his lips into his mouth and licked them. 

"I might have, um, thought that a _little._ But now I'm actually thinking, and, yeah." She shrugged, and tried to lean casually against the door, but there was far too much tension in her body to pull it off. "You weren't. I was being mean, and after you saved me, too... Um. Where was I going with this?"

"Towards an apology?" suggested Alex. "That _sounded_ like the beginning of an apology." His tone was almost joking, but he wanted one. He wanted one quite badly.

"Sure, if you want," said Alice, flippantly. 

Alex scowled and crossed his arms. 

"Alright, alright, I'm sorry. I was being paranoid. Can you blame me?"

"No," said Alex, already feeling better. 

"Anyway," said Alice. "We can work together." She inhaled deeply, and pulled out of her awkward lean. "You help me find out who killed me, and I'll help you," she shuddered, "find Walker-Rose."

Alex blinked in surprise. Ashton flitted to the sink and cawed up at Alice. 

"No, you can't get in on this." Another caw. "Don't give me that. If you get hurt, Mom and Dad will super ultra double kill me. Which apparently can happen now." She fingered the watch chain again.

"Can you understand him?" asked Alex, pointing. The bird glared at him, and he cringed. Ashton was small, but that beak looked sharp.

"Sorta?" Alice shrugged. "It isn't like I speak crow or anything, and Ashton hasn't figured out how to speak _as_ a crow yet, even though he's taking the classes-- Don't give me that look. It _is_ possible. Some of the first people who got turned into crows have been doing it for years. Heck, some normal crows can do it, I've heard. But he _is_ my brother, so I know what he wants to say." Ashton made a sound suspiciously similar to a laugh. "Don't give me that! I do!"

"Oh," said Alex. 

"Why did you ask, anyway?"

"No reason," he said with a sigh. "It was just driving me crazy. Are you serious about this deal? Do you really want to do this?"

"Do I want to hunt down a murderous lunatic? No. But I don't want one to track me down, either."

"No, I mean, helping me. Finding... him. It's okay if you don't want to." He paused. "I'll help you anyway," he promised. "You've already done so much for me, getting me to the doctor and talking your parents into letting me stay. We're more than even."

"Dude. No way we're even. You raised me from the dead." She froze. "Hold up," she muttered under her breath. "I should be arguing the other way."

"Is this, like, the other part of your apology?"

Alice shifted uncomfortably. "Just, I want to pay you back, but... I'm in trouble, too. I need help. I have to take care of that."

"Right," said Alex, making up his mind. "So, um, deal?"

Alice smiled brightly. "Deal," she said, holding out her hand. Alex shook it gingerly, but Alice had other ideas. She pulled him to his feet. "Now, I should show you-- Oh my gosh, my hair is a _mess_." 

She scowled at her reflection in the bathroom mirror and tried to rake her free hand through her hair. The scowl turned into more of a grimace as her fingers caught in the snarls.

"Whatever," she huffed. "I'll fix it later. Come on." She opened the door and strode out, pulling Alex along behind her. 

The next door they came to was painted white, and decorated with stickers. Layers and layers of stickers. At about eye level, there was a plaque reading ALICE'S ROOM in neon pink and a sticker demanded that EVERYONE KEEP OUT in an obstreperous font. In slightly smaller lettering, and in all lowercase letters, on a piece of masking tape, it was declared "that means you ashton."

The 'you' was underlined several times.

"Um, if you don't want anyone--" started Alex, leaning away from Alice. She pulled him inexorably forward.

"Don't be silly. I put that up ages ago, when I was a kid."

"You're _still_ a kid," said Alex. 

Alice glared at him. 

"We're _both_ kids," he defended. 

Ashton landed on Alex's shoulder and cawed. 

"What do you mean, you agree with him? He didn't say anything you could agree _with._ Sometimes," Alice continued, turning her gaze from Ashton to Alex, "I wonder if the curse isn't doing funny things to his head."

The next caw was angrier. Alice giggled and opened the door. Her room had a _lot_ of Alice in Wonderland posters. 

"It is my favorite book," she admitted, flouncing into the room. "You don't have to stare." She inhaled deeply, then flopped down, face-first, onto the bed. The blue-checkered quilt bunched up around her. "So tired." She rolled over. "You can come in. That's why I left the door open." Her voice was expectant, and she made a lazy beckoning motion with one hand. 

Alex exchanged a glance with Ashton, who only offered a shrug. 

Birds were not a great source of advice, Alex decided. 

He hesitantly stepped over the threshold. The flooring was different inside the room. Outside, in the hall, it was wood, inside, it was carpeted. It made the division starker, more apparent. Alex took two long steps to the center of the room, and stood there, feet neatly under him, elbows tucked close to his sides.

"You can use the chair," said Alice, with another wave of her hand. "Just take my buddies off of it."

"Buddies...?" He turned, and saw an office chair piled high with stuffed animals. They were mostly rabbits. White rabbits. "Oh," he said, eying the chair and its inhabitants. "Um. I think I'm okay."

"Whatever." She pulled a book out from beneath her pillow. "We need to figure out a full name for you. Unless, like, you want to be shunned."

"That would happen?"

"Yeah. Like I said, people who won't give their names aren't trusted. No one ever asks for your middle name, that's kinda supposed to be secret, and not everyone has one, but you need a last name."

"You told me your middle name," said Alex. 

"Special circumstance. A person doesn't get brought back to life every day. Thoughts?"

"Can't I borrow yours or something?"

"No. Don't be stupid. What kind of question is that?" She flipped through a few pages of her book. 

Leaning over, Alex read the title. _Etymology of Names._ "Anything I choose will be borrowed, anyway."

Alice paused, mid-flip. One of the pages brushed her nose. "Yeah," she said, slowly. "Yeah!" she repeated, with more enthusiasm. "That's a great idea!"

"What is?"

"All your last names would be _borrowed!_ Borrowed! You can be Alex Borrowed! Wait, no, that doesn't sound quite right." Her smile faded. She hummed, contemplatively. "What about Borrow _er._ Alex Borrower. It fits you, I think."

Alex shrugged. A name was a name. It wasn't as if it would actually matter-- only a person's real name counted for the magic right?

"Sure," he said. "But why do you think it fits? Other than the obvious, I guess." He cast his gaze down at his borrowed clothes. 

"Well," she said, sitting up, nose back in the book, "'Alex' is from the Greek word for help, and you helped me, so that's straightforward, and you _are_ borrowing a lot of stuff, like your name, and your clothes, and Ashton's bed. Besides, you look like an Alex."

Ashton cawed. Alex flinched. He'd managed to forget the bird sitting on his shoulder. 

"What?" asked Alice. 

Ashton took off, flying through the doorway. 

"Oh, fine. Ashton wants to show you his room, but he needs me to translate." She put down the book and stood, stretching. Her joints popped loudly enough to make Alex wince. "Come on."

The room she led him to was... interesting. For one, it didn't even have a door. The door frame had a jamb, a pair of hinges, and a fitting to receive a locking mechanism. There was a slight depression at the edge of the carpet showing. A door had been there, until recently, but it had been removed.

It was only when Ashton flew out of the room and landed on Alex's shoulder once more that Alex realized _why_. If Ashton had been a bird for long, or if his family _expected_ him to remain a bird for long, they would try to make his room, and probably the rest of his house, as bird-accessible as possible. Just like they'd make it wheelchair-accessible if he had broken his spine. 

Which led to the next question.

"Hey," he said, keeping his voice low, "how long does this curse last for, anyway?"

"Forever," said Alice. Her answer was much more subdued than her previous utterances. "Most curses do, unless they're, like, active ones. Magic outlives the magician."

Inside the room, the colors were darker than Alice's. The walls were empty of posters and painted blue. Ashton had more bookshelves, and his blinds were drawn tight over the windows. A neat computer desk sat in one corner, empty except for the computer itself and a large book with glossy pages. 

The book, from what Alex could see of it, consisted of exotic travel photographs. Many of the books on the shelves had a similar subject: faraway places and things.

Wanting to travel but being stuck here must be terrible. "Wanderlust?" asked Alex.

Ashton made a small, sad sound, and took off from Alex's shoulder, coming to rest on a perch in a modified birdcage. The cage, like the room, had no door. A corner of the cage was sectioned off with opaque paneling. Alex suspected it was what served Ashton as a bathroom. 

His sympathy for Ashton doubled.

Being a crow must suck. 

Ashton hopped off his perch and flew to the bed, landing on the dark green bedspread. He cawed again, spreading his wings. 

"You'll be using that bed," said Alice. "Ashton doesn't mind."

Ashton bobbed his head. 

"You sure?" asked Alex. 

Ashton bobbed his head again and hopped to one side, a clear invitation. 

"Thank you." Alex sat down next to the crow. He sighed. The bed was so soft! If he wasn't so hungry, he'd be tempted to go to sleep and not wake up until morning. Even so, he leaned back and closed his eyes. "Wish I could do something to help you out, too."

"You could help him with his books," suggested Alice, as Ashton jumped on Alex's chest. "He can't get them off the shelf by himself, and he has trouble with the pages." She prodded her brother with her finger. "Come on, we've got to show Alex the living room and the dining room and stuff." 

When Ashton didn't move, effectively trapping Alex, Alice rolled her eyes, picked up her sulking brother, and walked out of the room. 

Alex groaned and sat up slowly. Too slowly, he realized after a moment. When he reached the hall, Alice was nowhere in sight. 

"Alice?" he called out, uncertainly. There was no response. "Alice?" he tried again. 

"Hah!" exclaimed Alice, jumping out of her room, a manic smile on her face. 

"Argh!" yelled Alex, jumping back. He was kind of, sort of, not really, beginning to see why someone might want to kill her. "Why?" he demanded, aggrieved, once he had regained his breath, and his heart rate had fallen to something more manageable. 

Alice shrugged. "It's the kind of thing friends do, isn't it? At least, my friends do stuff like that." She raised her hand in a 'superman' pose. "To the living room!"

Alex sighed and followed her. 

After the tour of the house, and Alex's introduction to Sparky the cat, Alice's father came back with a sheaf of paperwork. Alex needed to fill out some of it. A good deal of it, actually. It turned out Alice giving him a last name was rather fortuitous, as the paperwork required it multiple times. 

"You know," said Alice, stealing a page, "this looks more like a placement test than anything else."

"A what?" asked Alex, crossly, trying to get the page back. 

"A placement test. To find out where you need to be in school."

Alex scowled down at a series of questions about dates and wars. He'd done better with the math. "Thanks for telling me," he said. 

"No problem."

"Actually," said Alex, after another minute. "I've got a question."

"Yep," said Alice. "Lots of them. About history."

"No," said Alex. "Why do the police have paperwork for amnesiacs drawn up and ready to go?"

"Huh. That's a good question." Alice leaned back on the couch, and stared at the ceiling. "Maybe it has to do with the Oroitzes? They do things with memory."

"They do?"

"Yeah. I think their name might mean memory, even. I don't know. They're in the Wardens. Maybe they do secret criminal rehab? Some people we can't really arrest properly, because they'd normally be transferred out of town. I've heard that running into the Border is a really nasty way to go."

"Do you think they could help me?" asked Alex. "If their name means memory..."

"I think the sheriff or Dr. Jason would have said something, though."

"Mhm," said Alex. He wasn't so sure about that. Both of them had seemed to be hiding something. "Who are the Wardens?" The sheriff might have mentioned them, but he'd been more concerned about the whole 'impending death due to breaking magic law' thing. 

"Well Wardens," said Alice. "They're supposed to protect the Well, keep it secret and stuff. Sometimes they fight sorcerers, if the sheriff can't handle them."

"This place is weird."

"Yeah."


	7. Endure

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm making progress! Yay! Thank you all for reading. :)

If anyone looked in on her, Alice would have appeared to be sleeping. Of course, she wasn't. Night was the perfect time for her magic. The only way for her ruse to be discovered would be if someone tried to wake her up.

Or if someone tried to kill her. 

Yeah. The whole murder thing sucked a lot of the fun out of astral projection.

Normally, at this time, she'd be up above the clouds, stargazing. Tonight, she was gazing at something much closer to home. So close to home it was _in_ her home. She was watching herself. Her body. 

She had _intended_ to leave like she always did, even if her goal tonight had been detective work rather than fooling around. But then she'd floated free, and...

Seeing herself dead-- seeing her own lifeless body-- had been hard. She didn't want to see that again.

Part of her worried if she left her body unguarded, that was exactly what would happen. 

Logically, it wouldn't... probably... She wasn't alone in the park. She was home, with the doors and windows locked. Alex and her brother were in the next room, her parents were just down the hall. If someone broke in, they'd know. They'd protect her.

Wouldn't they?

But the murderer might be able to walk through walls, or turn invisible, or kill someone by looking at them. Her mom's magic was _modifying clothes._ Her brother was a bird. Alex was recovering from a concussion bad enough to give him amnesia. Dad was great, but he was one (short) guy and he didn't really do fighting.

Feeling sick, she dropped back into her body. 

To her relief, spirit slid easily into flesh, her muscles twitching. Looking back, she realized she'd been worried it wouldn't.

Being dead was freaky. She never wanted to do it again. At least not until she was properly old a decrepit, with, like, a dozen grandchildren. 

A dozen was a good number. 

She rubbed her eyes and stared up at the ceiling. If this became some kind of phobia, if she wound up being afraid of her own power... No. She loved flying too much. 

But she couldn't bring herself to step out of herself again. Not tonight. 

After several long minutes of tossing and turning, Alice decided she wasn't ready to sleep, either. She got up and rolled her chair over to the window. The view wasn't remarkable, just grass, some apple trees, and the neighbor's hedge, but this way she'd be able to keep an eye out for... things. Not murderers, because the murderer probably hadn't heard about Alice getting un-murdered.

Yet.

Tomorrow, she'd sleep in Ashton's room. He and Alex wouldn't mind. 

Well, Ashton wouldn't. Alex might. She hadn't been very nice to Alex. She hadn't _meant_ to be mean, but, hey, being murdered was stressful. 

She still didn't believe it. Who would want to murder her? Why? There wasn't any reason. 

Well. She rubbed the watch. There was a reason _now._ But there hadn't been before. No one knew Alex would show up with the watch. 

Unless the person who killed her had fortune-telling magic. Was there anyone? Wishing was tiny, but not tiny enough for Alice to know everyone. She sighed heavily and glared out the window.

Across the lawn and through the hedge, Alice could see the lights of the neighbor's house. 

Alice had read, once, that most murder victims were killed by people they knew. She didn't know a huge number of people. Her family, her friends, her friends' families, her teachers, the other people at her school, the lady at the bank, the people at church...

Okay. She knew more people than she first thought. 

Well, she could rule out people, at least. Mom, Dad, Ashton. Alex, probably. Her best friend, Flora. Everyone who was currently a crow... Unless they had some kind of strangulation or telekinesis magic. 

She was going to have to be suspicious of virtually everyone, unless she knew they weren't capable magically or physically. Mercifully, that did exclude most of her friends.

It did not, however, rule out the neighbor, Ms. Weatherall. Alice's glare at their lights redoubled, although it made her feel both paranoid and a little bit like a jerk. 

Ms. Weatherall was small, round, and gray, not at all what a person would think of when picturing a murderer. Magic made the impossible possible, however, and Alice had it on good authority 'Weatherall' wasn't the woman's real name. 

Flora's mother worked in the Office of Nomenclature, and Flora said she'd overheard her mother talking on the phone about whether or not Ms. Weatherall's name change application should be approved, or if they should just give her a renewal on her pseudonym again. 

Suspicious. 

Although, Alice probably shouldn't put too much stock into overheard phone conversations related to her second hand, and even if Ms. Weatherall was using a false name, it didn't immediately follow that Ms. Weatherall had killed her. There were, after all, completely innocent reasons to change your name.

Besides, Ms. Weatherall would still need to get out to the bridge in the middle of the park. The walk might be a trivial task for Alice, but Ms. Weatherall was old. She was old enough that she didn't drive anymore. She hired someone.

Who else was suspicious? 

Her English teacher, Mr. Hand? He never liked her, and his name, Cyrus Hand, did lend itself to telekinesis. But he'd be able to strangle her on his own, anyway. He was pretty fit. 

Roger Talbot? The weirdo who always stared at her when she went to the grocery store, and who got permanently banned from the library for erasing books? He was big enough to kill her and dump her off the bridge.

To be honest, most people were. Alice was small. 

But they didn't have any motive. Who did?

Trent Diggory might, barely. She'd reported him to the principal for using magic on people he didn't like. His older sister made labyrinth stickers. Stick one on somebody, and they were guaranteed to get lost. He'd gotten detention.

Committing murder over detention was incredibly petty. Not to say that Trent wasn't petty and sort of vindictive on top of it, but he kept his revenge to inconvenient pranks. Besides, it had been weeks ago. Alice wasn't sure Trent was smart enough to hold a grudge for so long.

Okay, that was mean. Erase that thought.

Back to square one. 

If only she was more of a jerk! Then there would at least be a legitimate reason to want to kill her!

Oh, forget that. No matter how jerky they were, there was no real reason to kill someone her age. 

Alice got up and started walking around her room. It was dark, so she knocked into her bed more than once, but turning on her lights would be a dead (why did she have to use _that_ word?) giveaway to her parents that she was awake. 

She wasn't making any progress on her problem. What about Alex's?

How would one go about finding a sorcerer?

Ugh. If they were easy to find, the sheriff would have already done it. Sorcerers took what the wanted, didn't follow rules, and didn't associate with normal people. They lived on the wild outskirts of Wishing, in forests and abandoned houses. At least, that's what everyone said. 

'What everyone said' wasn't helpful. Sure, she could go fly around in the woods, but she did anyway, and without running into any sorcerers. 

_Ashton_ had run into Walker-Rose, though. Hence _his_ problem (aka being a crow). He hadn't exactly been _looking_ for Walker-Rose, just hanging out with his friends in a graveyard, like his ambition in life was to be the kind of character who died in the first five minutes of a horror movie. 

Why Ashton and his friends had been in the graveyard had never been properly addressed, but by the end of the encounter, half of them were crows. Specifically the male half. For whatever reason, Walker-Rose was much more likely to transform boys than any other group.

Was Walker-Rose into graveyards? She'd never heard of him turning up at any others. 

Maybe if she knew why Walker-Rose had become a sorcerer in the first place... She'd heard, once, that people became sorcerers because they thought they could solve their problems with magic. But Walker-Rose hadn't exactly made his problems public knowledge.

It all came back to motive. She should have read more mystery novels, instead of drowning herself in a hundred different Alice in Wonderland takes. 

But Ashton's encounter wasn't a bad place to start. She'd ask the other crows, too. All of them had seen Walker-Rose at some point. 

Talking to them, rather, _trying_ to talk to them, would be a real pain, though. She could guess with Ashton. For everyone else, she'd have to break out the scrabble tiles, or get a keyboard for them to peck at. 

The green numbers on her clock told her it was after midnight. Oh, she was going to hate herself in the morning. She was either going to be a slug, or paradoxically hyper. 

She sat down on her bed. She needed to go to sleep. 

Ms. Weatherall's lights twinkled at her. She got up again and pulled the blinds shut. She _would_ sleep. 

She wasn't sleeping. Stupid boring ceiling. 

What was she going to do? Why did she come up with this stupid idea, anyway? Two children and a crow weren't a detective team, even of the meddling kids variety. They needed at least one more person and a dog. Unless she counted Ashton as the dog. Then they needed two more people.

She needed help. They needed help. Help had to be someone who wouldn't freak out, kill her, arrest her, take the watch, lock up Alex for being suspicious, try to take over, or tell anyone else.

Who was like that?

Flora! But Flora had health issues, lots of them. Issues that got exacerbated by stress, according to her mother. 

Anyone else?

No. 

Well. Alice could always _lie._

She sighed and closed her eyes.


	8. Wake

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I keep splitting my longer chapters, so my chapter count keeps going up. :')
> 
> Thank you all for reading! Happy 4th of July to all my US readers! Stay safe.

Ashton's bed was warm, soft, and, best of all, _dry._ Alex loved it. He snuggled down farther into the blanket and crossed his ankles, enjoying the thick socks he had been given. Better yet, dinner had left him nice and full. 

Now, if only he could sleep, everything would be perfect. 

He didn't remember how. 

Which was stupid. Shouldn't his body just sort of _do_ it? 

He'd tried a lot of things. Closing his eyes, holding his breath, counting imaginary sheep, rolling over, talking to himself, meditating on his exhaustion, yawning, turning off the lights, turning on the lights... None of them worked. As for Ashton, he'd passed out within minutes.

Alex was jealous.

So, he decided to read the informational packet instead. Maybe it would be boring and knock him out. Boredom made people fall asleep, right?

He wanted to know more about Brandon Adrian Grant Walker-Rose. 

The sorcerer had a lot of powers, which made sense, considering he had five names. 

Alex read about how Walker-Rose could turn himself and others into crows, how he could create barriers, force fields, out of thin air. He read about the simulacra, red-eyed monsters made of rose petals that followed the sorcerer's every command. At the very end, a longer entry suggested that he might be responsible for the permanently-cloudy skies and the flooding. 

The next page contained crimes and accusations. Theft, destruction, two-hundred and six people turned into crows. The burning of the public rose garden. Outsider florists lured in with fake weddings. An entire retirement community held hostage for two hours. 

At that point he started getting depressed and tried to distract himself with the rest of the packet. The list of sorcerers was only one of the many sections, although some of the city ordinances were clearly caused by sorcerers. The law against growing roses, for example. 

But, eventually, he found himself staring at the sketch of Brandon Adrian Grant Walker-Rose's face once again. He _recognized_ that face.

He dropped the packet on the ground next to the bed and closed his eyes. If he could just track down that memory, trace the image back through his mind... He could imagine exactly how the real thing would look, colors and all. 

But the harder he grasped for answers, the farther away they seemed to be. Soon, only a sensation of stretching through the dark remained.

Hadn't he been in bed? Was he asleep? Was this what sleeping felt like?

Honestly, this was a bit of a letdown. He'd expected something more... relaxing...

He drifted. 

Space began to fill in around him. Lines. Shapes. Textures.

He sat in a dark room on a wood floor, pulling up boards with nothing but his bare hands. Papers laid scattered all around him, each one bearing a sorcerer's face. He knew the room was cold, but he was warm. No. Hot. Hot and _burning_. 

A board came up with a crack, the end splintering. 

The house had been beautiful, once. It had been a site of triumph. A victory. A bottle of champagne popped long ago, the scent of grapes tinted with vinegar. Brass gears scattered on the floor like coins, ringing like church bells. Deals made. River lilies delivered to the back door. He smelled them, rotting and fecund. 

A dark hole yawned in the middle of the floor, deep and dark between the trusses. He leaned down, until the darkness hovered in front of his face, brushing against his skin like cloth. He reached in, and his hand closed around dread in the shape of a chain. Something rattled and ticked. 

He pulled on the chain. Never had he seen anything so horrible as the watch dangling from its end, reflecting firelight and despair. 

A paper rustled behind him, like footsteps through dry grass, and he turned in time to see a paper dance off the floor, fluttering in a nonexistent wind. A wanted poster, bearing the face of Brandon Adrian Grant Walker-Rose. A darkness gathered behind, bearing the paper up, up, up, until the dark touched the rafters and gazed down at him with disappointment. 

_Give the watch to me!_ Cried the paper lips, the darkness holding out a hand with too many fingers. 

(This wasn't right.)

He stepped back and fell. 

The sky and ground were white. Pieces of it fell through his gloved fingers. On the horizon, fragmented green spears, so dark they were almost black, thrust into the sky. It was cold, but he was warm.

He was warm, and his hands were bare, wrapped around a ceramic mug. He had painted this, before it broke. His mother sat beside him, but she wore a mask. Her hair was full of flowers.

The thing in his hands imitated a heart. Blood dripped to the floor and blew away like petals in the wind. A girl wearing a striped sweatshirt stood, waiting for him. Her glasses reflected fire. She tilted her head. He almost saw her eyes, almost remembered what they looked like. 

They looked like his. But not blue. Never blue. 

_That is your choice isn't it? Let's walk. You can remember me with your recycled soul. Speak to me with your brand new name._

She wasn't real. 

He woke up. 

A moment, a few heartbeats, and a pair of blinks, and he knew where he was. He sat up, rubbing his eyes with the sleeve of his borrowed pajamas. Dreaming was strange. He wasn't sure he wanted to do it again. 

A clock with red digits told Alex the time was six thirty. In its ruddy light, Alex saw Ashton sleeping in his cage. Quietly, so as not to disturb the other boy, Alex eased himself out of bed and pulled off the pajamas. 

Another set of borrowed clothes awaited him, taken out for his use and stacked on the desk by Mrs. Linh yesterday. 

Once he had pulled on the last article, a dark green sweater, a weight settled on his shoulder, and he looked over, surprised. Ashton stared at him with a beady black eye.

"Sorry," said Alex. "Did I wake you?"

The bird shook his head. 

"Okay," said Alex, releasing the tension in his shoulders. Ashton hopped a little to keep his balance. "So," he continued, quietly, "breakfast?" 

Ashton nodded sharply and chirped a little. He raised a wing and pointed to the door. Alex took this as a 'yes.' Before he left the room, he grabbed the information packet, folding it up and sticking it into his pocket. He might need it. 

Once he got to the kitchen, he stopped, uncertain. He was hungry, but he was a guest here. Rooting around in the Linh's kitchen would be rude. Still, no one else was awake, except for Ashton. 

Ashton seemed to think everything was fine, so...

Alice saved him from further dithering by stumbling into the kitchen, yawning, her hair as tangled as it was yesterday, and thumping straight to the refrigerator. She rapidly and efficiently acquired for herself a carton of orange juice, a gallon of milk, a cup, a bowl, a spoon, and a box of what looked like _fabulously_ sugary cereal.

Alex wanted to try it immediately. 

"Help yourself," she mumbled, waving at the cabinets. "I'll take care Ashton's stuff. Don't let him eat the cereal. It isn't formulated for crows, and Mom'll throw a fit." Ashton cawed indignantly.

"Don't crows eat, things like garbage and raw meat, though? All the time?" This comment caused Ashton to buffet Alex on the side of the head with his wing.

"Yeah, but don't tell Mom that," said Alice, setting up a smaller bowl, and pouring something much less appetizing into it. Ashton reluctantly jumped off Alex's shoulder. 

"Can I ask you a question? A couple questions, actually."

"Don't expect me to be coherent," mumbled Alice. "And be careful about saying stuff. Dad's already gone, but Mom gets up at all sorts of weird times depending on how late she stayed up working." She shoved a spoonful of cereal into her mouth.

"Why were you in the park? Doing the," he waved his hands in what he hoped was an understandable facsimile of a soul leaving the body, "thing."

Alice rolled her eyes. "Mom and Dad think being out of body for too long, or too often, or whatever, is unhealthy. Parent stuff. But being astral is great. Flying is the best thing, like, ever."

"So you were..."

"Sneaking some extra astral time, yeah." She jabbed a spoon at Ashton. "And don't you say anything about me being an addict!"

"Can that happen?" asked Alex. "Getting addicted to magic?"

"I guess you can get addicted to anything, can't you?"

Alex nodded and slid the probably-delicious cereal over to himself. Alice sounded like she knew what she was talking about.

"I've got another question; something I read last night..."

"Yeah?"

"Is they sky really always overcast?"

"Every day," said Alice. "Since before I was born."

"We used to have different weather," said Mrs Linh, entering the kitchen, "years ago. I remember seeing the stars in person. But now we have clouds." She walked over and kissed Alice on the top of her head. "Good morning, sweetie," she said. "Good morning, Ashton. Alex, are you ready for your first day of school?"

Alex dropped his spoon. "What?" he asked, wide-eyed. "What do you mean, school? What school?"

"What did you think all those assessments Sheriff Sullivan sent were for, silly? You'll be getting on the bus with Alice and Ashton."

Alex dove for his spoon, blushing. "Isn't that kind of fast? I only got here yesterday, I don't know anything, I don't-" his argument spluttered to a halt. Ignorance was a reason _to_ go to school. "Do they even know I'm coming?"

"Sheriff Sullivan called them yesterday. Don't worry, you won't be in classes. They'll still be testing you. At least, I think that's what they meant..." Mrs Linh trailed off, uncertain. She smiled at Alex. "You'll be fine. Besides, someone there might r you. It would make things a lot easier if you ran into your next-door neighbor at the school, wouldn't it?"

"I guess. Still, it's fast, isn't it?" he asked, desperately. 

"Well, we do try to work these things out quickly, the Sheriff especially. No slow-paced, small town business. What with magic and sorcerers and flooding wells... We just don't have the time."

"So, you're admitting it! It is fast!" said Alex, latching on to that part of Mrs Linh's statement and refusing to let go. 

Mrs Linh sighed. "Yes, but you're still going. Everyone has to go to school."

"Hey, it'll be fun. You'll get to meet my classmates." Her mouth said _classmates,_ but her eyes said _suspects._

Great, no one was on his side. Well, maybe Ashton... Nope. The bird-boy ignored the conversation and Alex's pleading eyes in favor of his breakfast. 

"He's more likely to place into Ashton's grade," said Mrs Linh. "Don't be disappointed, Alice."

"I won't be," she said cheerfully, her eyes shooting daggers at Alex.

Was she... threatening him to do well on the tests?

Eventually, Alex managed to get a bowl of cereal together, and eat it. Unfortunately, his stomach was so tied up in knots of dread that he couldn't enjoy it. He could hardly tell what it tasted like.

Then, at Mrs Linh's insistence, he brushed his teeth and hair, made use of the bathroom, put on those borrowed, ill-fitting shoes, and joined Alice and Ashton outside, waiting for the bus. It was cold, wet, and miserable outside, which only added to Alex's sense of dread, doom, and despair. At least he had been given a raincoat. 

So had Ashton. It was a very small, crow-shaped raincoat, but still a raincoat. A yellow raincoat. Alice was helping him remove it. Alex chose not to laugh. He'd be pecked to death if he did. 

Alex did have to wonder, though, how Mrs Linh had gotten it on Ashton in the first place. The image lightened Alex's mood considerably.

"Why were you so keen about me meeting your class?" asked Alex, coming up beside Alice, studiously not mentioning, or noticing, Ashton's plight.

"Most people," said Alice, her fingers slipping on the water-slick buttons of Ashton's jacket, "who are murdered, are murdered by- by _acquaintances_. Most of my acquaintances are at school. Thusly and therefore... Jeez, Ashton, stop flapping around. You're going to hit me in the face. Oh, yeah, and someone at school can help us."

"Didn't you make a big deal yesterday about how we can only trust each other? And Ashton, but he doesn't count, because he can't talk." Ashton cawed angrily. "Well, you don't." Alex paused. Sagged. "Now I'm doing it."

"That one was pretty obvious, honestly," said Alice. "Anyway, I'm not gonna tell him I died, or anything like that. He'd totally freak out."

"Sooo..." said Alex, drawing out the word. "Who is this guy, and what _are_ you going to tell him?"

"Um. He's my boyfriend, and I haven't quite figured that out yet."

"You have a boyfriend?" asked Alex, surprisingly disappointed. 

"What," said Alice, defensively, "am I some kind of troglodyte? Is it really that surprising for me to be dating? Don't ask me how I know that word."

"What word?" Vocabulary was the last thing he wanted to talk about, but he still had to ask.

"Troglodyte."

"I wasn't going to." Troglodyte was a completely reasonable and ordinary word. Whatever it meant. "Why don't you want me to ask?"

"I told you not to ask!" said Alice, blushing. She finally got the coat off Ashton and crossed her arms. "I'll- I'll tell him someone attacked me, but from behind, and I didn't see the person at all."

"Right. And how did you get away?"

"Easy. You saved me, but you hit your head in the struggle, so you have amnesia."

"There are so many holes in that."

"Eh, he'll be too worried to spot the holes."

"I thought you didn't want him to worry."

"No, I don't want him to _freak out_. There's a difference. If he's just _worried_ , he won't tell an adult."

Alex felt dubious. "Are you sure you're going to be able to keep all these stories straight?"

"Are _you?"_ challenged Alice. 

"No," said Alex, shrugging. 

Ashton made a sound like laughter. 


	9. All Unusual Suspects

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm making progress and feeling powerful! Thank you all for reading!

"His name is Luke," said Alice, after a couple of minutes.

Simultaneously, Alex asked, "When does the bus get here?"

Ashton tittered at them again. Getting laughed at by a guy who'd gotten himself turned into a crow was aggravating. 

"Um," said Alex. "Luke?"

"Yep."

"Does he have magic?"

"Yep."

"What is it?"

"It'll be funnier if you don't know. Hey, here comes the bus."

Getting on the bus was, in a word, terrible. Filled with people and birds, the only way to describe the sound was _cacophonous_. When he made the poor choice of touching the seat near the door, his hand came away sticky. Mud and water made the floor slick and slippery. Alex almost bolted, but Alice caught him, keeping him on the bus. 

Then the people noticed him and began to stare.

"This is Alex," said Alice to the bus driver and the expectant silence. 

The noise erupted again, this time aimed directly at Alex, asking who he was and why he was with Alice. 

Alex declined to answer. He hid behind Alice. For a second, she let him as she scanned the bus with a sort of pinched expression, then she strode forward, dragging Alex with her.

She stopped to slide into a seat next to a tall boy with pale blond hair. Alex practically collapsed on the plastic seat on her other side. 

"Hi, Luke," said Alice. "How are you doing?"

"Uh, fine," he said, slowly. "Who is this, and why was he at your house?"

"He's Alex, and reasons," said Alice. "I need to talk to you about something as soon as we get to school. Privately."

Luke's face fell. "Are we breaking up?"

"What? No. I've just got something to tell you."

"Oh. So. Alex?"

"Yeah?" said Alex, trying to keep his shoulders from inching up. 

"Why were you at Alice's house?" The question sounded a little more threatening, when directed at Alex. 

Alex slumped down in his seat, trying to avoid Luke's gaze. Ashton jumped onto his head and cawed at the larger boy. 

"You're... Ashton's friend?" asked Luke, his eyes narrowed at the bird. "Are you, like, home schooled or something? Because I don't think I've seen you before."

"Yeah," said Alex, "sure."

"Mom thought he should experience the joys of public school while he's staying with us," explained Alice. 

Various eavesdroppers tittered as they absorbed the information. Alex tried to disappear behind Alice again. Alice didn't react. 

"So, Alex," she said, getting Alex's attention. "The dorks in the seat in front of us are Joan and Angela. Joan does things with bees. Angela has the highest grades in my class."

"Except in social studies," said the second girl, abandoning the pretense of not paying attention. "I've never heard of you. How d'you know Ashton?"

"Around," said Alex, shrugging.

Oh, to be a character in a spy thriller. He would've been able to think of something then. 

"'Kay," said Angela, folding her arms over the top of the seat and resting her chin on them. "Don't tell if you don't want. So, which grade are you in?"

Alex shrugged. "I think I'm doing placement testing today."

"Ooh, fun. Testing."

"Come off it, Angie," said Joan, turning. The motion dislodged several bees from her honey-blonde hair, which buzzed around her for a moment before settling again. "No one _actually_ likes tests. You're smarter than we are, you don't need to keep reminding us."

"I do too like tests," insisted Angela. "They're fun, like trivia games. And I'm not smarter than you guys, I'm just better at taking tests."

"Believe it or not, these guys are my friends," said Alice. "Plus Harlan," she said, pointing towards a bird sitting on top of Joan's head. "He's Joan's brother. Also, Emery and Flora, but Emery always gets sick when he's away from home, 'cause magic, so you're not going to see him today, or the rest of the week, probably, and Flora doesn't take the bus."

Belatedly, Alex realized there were few human boys on the bus. Almost everywhere he looked, it was girls or birds.

He'd need to ask Alice about that, later. It felt important. 

But for now, he crossed his arms and listened to a detailed summary of a television show he's never heard of. Well, theoretically he could be the biggest fan of the show in the entire world and not remember it, but that seemed far-fetched. 

They got to the school, and Alex had just enough time to meet Flora, a pretty but frail girl with spring-green hair, before being whisked away to the cavernous and thoroughly intimidating office. He sat in an uncomfortable green chair, watching people go in and out, talking about sports, advancing to high school, college applications, and other ephemera.

Boring.

He began to tap his foot. When that failed to entertain him sufficiently, he decided to see how long he could balance his chair on two legs. 

The secretary told him to knock it off. 

He sighed, letting the chair fall back to the ground with a loud thump. 

A gorilla-like man entered the office and smiled at Alex. His not-quite-straight teeth shone starkly against his beard. 

"You must be Alex! I'm the principal, Mr. Lambert." He held out his hand. Alex shook it gingerly. "Do you have your paperwork?"

"Yeah, um, yes," said Alex, pulling it out of the small bag Mrs Linh had given him. "All the school stuff is here, probably. I hope."

Mr Lambert took it and examined it for a few minutes. "You want to go by Alex Borrower?" 

"Yes, sir," said Alex. 

"Alright," said the principal. "We're going to have you take a few more tests while we grade these. We should know where you need to be by the end of the day. We have a room back here for you to work in. I'll be proctoring you."

"Um, what's proctoring?"

"Watching, to make sure that you follow the rules for the test." 

In other words, to make sure that he didn't cheat. Alex sighed. He wished that people would be more straightforward. Working out circumlocutions would be tiring.

Hours later, Mr. Lambert released Alex to go to lunch. With both his eyes and his brain aching and gritty, Alex stumbled out of the gloom of the office into the barely brighter illumination provided by the overcast sky. 

Depressing. 

If Alex was from here, he'd be used to the weather, wouldn't he? But if not, how did he get the watch?

He stood nervously outside the office for several minutes before a teacher pointed him in the direction of the cafeteria. 

Honestly, he preferred the bus. The cafeteria had three times as many people and ten times the noise. Alex froze in the doorway. They were all moving around so much. How could anyone eat in all this?

They obviously _were_ , Alex saw them, but...

Maybe Alice or one of her friends could help. Or Ashton, but he would never be able to pick Ashton out from all the other crows thronging the cafeteria. Heck, individual human faces were hard enough to distinguish in this crowd. There were just too many of them. 

Not that he'd recognize Alice's friends. Their features had been replaced with formulas, figures, and an annoying question about the capital of Pennsylvania. If Alice didn't take her namesake so seriously, he'd doubt his ability to find her. 

As it was, he concluded she wasn't in the cafeteria. 

Lunch wasn't worth this. No food was worth this. Then again, the only foods he had experience with currently were spaghetti and cereal. So. 

The silver lining was that this must, if nothing else, rule out the possibility of him _ever_ having been a public-school student. 

He retreated. The air outside might be cold and damp, but it was clean and quiet. Mostly. 

Much better.

He found an unoccupied and only slightly damp bench and sat down, sighing. His stomach grumbled, but he ignored it. Instead, he leaned back and closed his eyes. The pain that had been building in his head began to ease.

It couldn't last. Footsteps sounded on the wet concrete, and the bench shuddered under new weight. Alex startled away from the unexpected intrusion, eyes snapping open. 

A girl in a pink shirt and braids was sitting on the opposite side of the bench. A _crying_ girl. 

Alex was in no way prepared for this. Why was this happening? The cafeteria was _bad,_ but not something to cry about. Was she hurt?

"Um," he said, "are, are you okay?" Be polite, stupid! "Uh, Miss?"

"She's dead!" wailed the girl. 

Alex's mind jumped to Alice. "Who is?"

"M-my cousin, Misty. She w-went missing." She looked up, her eyes rimmed with red. "Sh-she- They found her in the grange basement. S-someone _strangled_ her. Who would do that? Why would anyone do that?" her tone grew angry. "She never hurt anyone!" She sniffled, deflating with a sort of whine. "She was my best friends." 

"I'm sorry," said Alex. 

The girl rubbed her eyes. "Who're you, anyway?"

"Um, my name is Alex. Alex Borrower." He needed to get used to his 'full name.'

"I'm Marisa. You're not from here."

"I was home schooled," said Alex, quickly. "This is my first day."

"Some first day, huh?" Marisa's breath hitched. "S-sorry for bothering you."

"It's fine," said Alex, absently noting he had pushed himself as far away from Marisa as possible while still being on the same bench. "Is, um, there anything I can do? For you? To help?"

Wow, he really needed to practice this talking to other people thing. That had been _painful._

Marisa shook her head miserably. "Not unless you can bring Misty back to life."

Alex suppressed a flinch. Marisa didn't know about the watch. Her phrasing was a coincidence. Of course she'd want her strangled cousin back. Who wouldn't?

Alice had been strangled. 

Misty had presumably been a teenage girl, like Alice. Wishing was a small, isolated town. Similar murders, similar victims, similar times... Could there be two murderers? Unlikely. 

Exactly when had Misty been killed? What had she been like? Did she share any similarities with Alice? Was there a suspect?

How could Alex interrogate Marisa about her dead cousin without being unspeakably rude?

Alex looked down. "I'm sorry," he said. 

"Marisa?" asked a new voice. 

Alex and Marisa both turned to face the newcomer, a tall boy with sandy hair and thick eyebrows. 

"The office is looking for you," he said. "Are you okay? Like, you're crying."

"Trent," said Marisa. "They found Misty."

"Oh," said Trent, putting his hands in his pockets and hunching his shoulders. "Isn't that... good?"

"She's dead."

Trent made a sort of choking sound. "I'm sorry," he said. He gave Marisa, who was still on the bench, a sort of awkward hug. "I'm so, so, sorry. I'm here, though. To help, or anything else. And, uh..." He trailed off as he caught sight of Alex. "Who're you?"

"Alex," said Alex, raising a hand.

Trent's nose wrinkled. "You're that kid who's staying with the Linhs."

"Yeah."

"Trent," said Marisa, a note of warning in her voice. 

Alex was definitely missing something here. He disliked the way Trent was looking at him. 

"Sorry, no offense, man," said Trent, slapping Alex on the back a little too hard to be friendly. Alex scooted away. "Thanks for helping Mari."

"Yeah," said Alex, "sure. No problem."

Trent smiled, body much more relaxed. "Let's go, Mari. Before Mr. Lambert freaks out?"

"Yeah," said Marisa, wiping away her tears. "Thanks, Alex."

Alex nodded, and, mercifully, Marisa and Trent left. Marisa seemed nice, and he'd wanted to (tastefully!) ask more about Marisa's cousin, but Alex got a bad feeling from Trent. 

Maybe he could track Marisa down later, although his utter failure to locate Alice did not speak well of his abilities in-

"So what was that about?"

"Argh!" exclaimed Alex, jerking away from the voice coming from just behind his ear. He fell off the bench.

"Oops," said Alice. "You okay?"

Alex waved off her concern and picked himself up from the ground, rubbing the wetness of the ground off his hands and onto his pants. "Where were you before?" 

"Explaining stuff to Luke," said Alice, hooking her thumb over her shoulder, indicating a dazed-looking Luke, "and getting lunch. It's pizza day. Aren't you going to eat?"


	10. A Light in the Dark

Several explanations and a lunch later, Luke, Ashton, Alice, and Alex found themselves in a disused classroom. 

"Misty Motley was _murdered?_ " repeated Alice. "Are you sure?"

"That's what Marisa _said._ " 

"And she told _you?_ No offense, but Marisa hangs out with Trent. They're kind of jerks."

Luke, who had recovered from his earlier shock, sighed. "Trent's the one you have to be careful of." Alice nodded in agreement as Luke spoke. "He'll use magic to screw with you if he doesn't like you. One time he put a self-filling glass in my locker. Upside down. And don't get me started on the labyrinth stickers. Marisa's not bad, though."

"Not to _you,"_ said Alice, her tone accusatory. She leaned into Luke. "You're too pretty to shun."

"You're the pretty one."

Alex endeavored to chew his pizza loudly, so as to drown out the canoodling. He liked pizza, it was tasty. Not tasty enough to justify the chaos of the cafeteria, but still good. Ashton, despite lacking human anatomy, managed to make a truly horrific choking noise. 

Alice threw an eraser at him and reluctantly pulled away from her boyfriend. "So, did Marisa say where this was? Where, um, where they found the body?"

"The basement of the grange. Whatever a grange is."

"It's a building," said Alice. She frowned. "Also an organization. For farmers. But mostly old people use it to play bingo. Oh, and the church."

"I haven't heard of that game," said Alex. 

"Bingo?" said Luke. 

"No, church. I didn't know that was the name of a game."

"It's... not," said Alice. "The church uses the grange, sometimes, is what I meant."

"Churches, plural," added Luke. "It isn't just your church."

"Right. Anyway, we'll have to go there later," said Alice, suddenly serious. "Luke, are you in?"

"I don't know," said Luke, rubbing the back of his neck. "What you're asking could get us in real trouble. _Police_ trouble. I'm not even sure why you want it."

"This is Wishing. Everything comes back to magic."

Alex put down the remnants of his pizza. "Um, anyone want to tell me what Alice wants? I'm lost, here."

Luke frowned at Alex, but Alice elbowed him, and Luke rolled his eyes. "Okay, fine," he said. "You'd better not tell anyone about this, though. Like I said, big trouble." 

"I won't. Promise."

Luke chewed on his lower lip. "Fine," he said. "Alice thinks the person who attacked her might have a strangulation, squeezing, or constricting magic."

"Or telekinesis," added Alice. 

"Or that. So she wants me to use my student council privileges to break into the school record room and access the magic records illegally. Which is _massively_ unethical, Alice."

"Yeah, but it's the only way to check for that kind of thing."

"Can't you just figure it out? From the name?"

"Sometimes names don't do what you expect," said Luke, shrugging. "Especially if they have extra connotations beyond literal meaning. Like, Brandon Walker-Rose. His name doesn't explicitly have anything about crows in it, but there's such a strong association between the name Brandon, the name Bran, and crows that- Ow, Ashton, what the heck? Stop pecking me! It was a legitimate example!"

"Not to mention middle names," said Alice as Luke fended off an irate Ashton, "which usually aren't public. Don't worry about Ashton. He takes any excuse to attack Luke."

"But, Luke can get them? The middle names? The school records them?"

"Yeah, but students aren't allowed to look at that stuff," said Luke, defending his head with a notebook. Ashton continued, undeterred. "It doesn't matter that I'm the student body secretary. They only let student government in for, like, budget stuff, and student council meeting minutes. I'm in a position of _trust,_ Alice."

"All the better!"

Luke's face twisted. "I understand you don't want to tell anybody about what you do in the park, but don't you think the sheriff might be more likely to find this creep? I think that'd be safer, too. I mean-"

A loud ring split the air. Everyone jumped.

"Back to class," said Alice, sliding off the table she had been sitting on. "You can find your way back to the office, right, Alex?"

"Yeah," said Alex, confident. The school wasn't that big, and it wasn't purposefully designed to be confusing. That would be stupid.

"Cool. Luke, you have a free period next, right? That'd be the _perfect_ time. You do student council stuff then, anyway, right?"

Luke groaned loudly, his whole body slumping. 

Wow. Dramatic. 

"Fine," he said, "I'll do it. But that's _it._ If this escalates, I'm _not_ getting involved with stealing from City Hall. That's super illegal, and super dangerous, and my parents would ground me forever, even if the sheriff _didn't_ toss me in jail."

"We're just borrowing," said Alice, but her grin made Alex doubt she believed that. She stood on her tiptoes, and kissed Luke on the cheek. "I knew I could count on you." Then she skipped away. "To math!" she declared at the doorway, jabbing her finger towards the ceiling. Ashton flitted after her. 

Luke sighed like a man who had just agreed to his own execution. "You should go too," he said. "Passing period is only seven minutes."

"Are you really going to take the records?" asked Alex.

"Do you really have amnesia?"

"Yeah," said Alex. "I'm going to go now. Bye." He backed out of the room, taken by the sudden but pressing notion that it would be rude to turn his back on the other boy, and was almost immediately swept away by the river of children that had flooded the hall.

Moments later it became apparent that either Alex had vastly overestimated his sense of direction, or the school building _was_ , in fact, designed to be confusing. At first he had blamed his disorientation on all the students flooding the hallways, but they had long since funneled into the classrooms and abandoned the halls.

He cringed when the intercom came on and demanded his presence in the office. He was _trying,_ darn it. He didn't _want_ to be lost.

To distract himself from his predicament, he began peeking into rooms and listening in on classes. A loud argument about whether or not conspiracy theories should be included in the science curriculum broke out and echoed down the hall. A little further on, he heard an English class doing a rather disturbing reading of Romeo and Juliet. One classroom was entirely populated by crows, no human teacher in sight. The shut door of the neighboring room was labeled 'Advanced Etymology.'

He found a library and walked through it without finding the check-out desk or a single other person, and not for lack of trying. 

Something was not right here. 

He turned around. He'd been traveling in a straight line, but now a tall shelf blocked his path. Did the shelves move around? Was the school magic? Did it hate him?

Eventually, he came upon an outside door. The courtyard he found himself in was unfamiliar. When he'd arrived, he had been sure the school had _one_ courtyard. Had he underestimated the size of the buildings so much?

He sucked in his lower lip. That door on the other side of the courtyard looked vaguely similar to the office door. Maybe it led into the back, or something like that? 

He opened the door. The room inside was almost entirely dark and almost entirely empty. 

"Are you _glowing?"_

Luke inhaled sharply through his teeth and dropped a handful of papers. "Close the door," he hissed, grabbing Alex's arm and pulling him in. "Anyone could see!"

"That you're glowing?"

"No, that I'm here, going through the magic records." Luke pulled the door closed and propped a nearby chair under the handle. 

"I think that only works if the door opens in."

"Shh, this room shares a wall with Mr. Lambert's office," said Luke, gesturing towards the offending architectural feature. 

"Oh, sorry," said Alex, dropping his voice to a whisper. 

"What are you doing here, anyway? Did Alice send you? You know the teachers are trying to find you, right?"

"Yeah," said Alex. "I mean, Alice didn't send me. I was searching for the office. I got lost."

Luke ran a frustrated hand through his faintly luminous hair. "Well, I guess you can help me now that you're here. Hold these."

"Why do you have the lights off?"

"Because the light switch is inside the office. Originally, this room was a closet. And Mr. Lambert is a power saving fanatic. He'd notice if I turned it on. Now, shut up." With that, Luke gathered the papers he dropped and went back to the filing cabinet. 

Alex took the opportunity to examine the room. It was large for a closet, but small for any other kind of room. A tiny, two-foot square folding table sat in the middle of the room, straining under the weight of what must be Luke's backpack. Mismatched bookshelves and cabinets lines the walls. Layers of paint peeled off the walls at their edges. 

He tilted his head back.

"Don't look up," instructed Luke.

"Huh?"

"School curses. Don't look up or at any clocks for more than a couple of minutes. Not worth it," explained Luke, tersely. 

"Why not? What happens?"

"About ten years ago, a teacher named Rana Abbas decided she could use her magic to stop kids from staring at the clocks all the time. She got super fired, but the clocks will still mess with your head if you look at them too long. So don't."

"And the ceiling?"

"Also cursed. If you look up too long, you wind up somewhere else in the school. Like the girl's bathroom, or the crawlspace above the drama classroom. Whoever made it did it ages ago." Luke pulled another bundle of paper from the cabinet. "This should be it," he said. 

Luke grabbed his backpack and, with visible effort, lifted it off the table before dumping it on the floor. He deposited the papers on the table, then dove to his backpack to fish out a notebook, a number of loose papers, and a pair of pencils. 

He handed the loose papers and one pencil to Alex. 

"What's this?" asked Alex. The top of his scalp tingled with the effort of not looking up. 

"As long as you're here, you're helping me. I can't take these with me, so we have to copy them down."

"All of them?" whispered Alex incredulously. He leaned forward, putting his nose an inch from the paper to read the tiny print in the dim light. 

Luke's glow brightened. "No, only the first and second columns. Ignore the other ones, and hurry."

Alex angled his first page so the light fell on it more directly. Printed on top were the words 'student name,' 'magic,' 'description,' and 'issues.'

As instructed, Alex only recorded the contents of the first two columns. He had gotten through three sheets when a loud noise from the principal's office made both boys jump and freeze. 

There was another thump and then a scrape. Luke winced.

"...k you for... ng down, Sheriff." Principal Lambert's voice came faint and somewhat muffled through the wall.

"Not a pr...lem," came the sheriff's voice. "...stand Alex has...?"

Luke inhaled sharply at the mention of Alex's name, drowning out the last word of the question. After that they both held their breath.

"Yes. I have to ask... this was wise? Bringing... so quickly?

"It was our only op... to solve... Other iss..."

"I understand, but, murders... he's involved?"

"Unlikely. Checked over... never... will check again..." The next words were lost as a fan somewhere in the building came on, making a lot of noise in the process.

Luke and Alex exchanged a glance and, as one, went to the wall and pressed their ears against it. Luke did, anyway. Alex couldn't quite reach over the bank of filing cabinets. 

Therefore, the only information Alex got was Luke's increasingly horrified expression and rapidly dimming glow. After a few minutes, Luke drew himself away from the wall, glow flickering. 

"What did they say?" asked Alex, careful to whisper. 

"Six," said Luke. 

"Six? Six what?"

"Six murders. Six strangulations. You said Alice was almost strangled."

"Yeah? I mean, I don't remember," he added, recalling the cover story, "but Alice said so."

"He said there were six of them. Oh my god. Six. I thought Misty was a fluke..." He trailed off. "You need to leave," he said. "I'll finish this. If you're missing any longer there'll be trouble."

"But I still don't know where the office is!" protested Alex. 

"Follow the wall to the right, you can't miss it," said Luke, pushing Alex out. In the process, Alex stumbled over the chair, and both winced at the noise. Still, no one came for them, so Luke kept pushing him until he was out the door. 

Argh. It was _bright_ out here! Alex blinked and rubbed his eyes. 

Had Luke said right or left?

Gosh, he was hopeless. He picked left, sure he had come from the right.

He was wrong. He was very, very wrong. 

He'd wound up inside again, and he wasn't entirely sure how. This building was older, or at least not as well maintained as the other parts of the school. 

Only half of the fluorescent lights were an, and they buzzed loudly. The forest green pain on the walls had peeled worse than in the record room. Dinged and beaten lockers lined the walls. Some of them lacked doors. In several places, desks, books, and other supplies were piled in the hall. Dust lay thick on everything but the floor. 

All the doors Alex tried were locked. 

Alex despaired of ever escaping. He must be in so much trouble with the office. He blinked back tears. 

If he couldn't find his way through a school, how could he find Brandon Adrian Grant Walker-Rose? How was he supposed to help Alice find her killer? 

He was useless and a traitor and he didn't deserve a second chance. He had never deserved a second chance. 

A tear ran down the side of his nose, and Alex swiped at it violently. Which meant he essentially punched himself in the face. 

At least no one was here to see. 

Sniffling, he pulled off his borrowed shoes, which, at this point, were doing their level best to _eat_ his poor feet. If he was stuck here, his feet should be comfortable. 

A crash echoed down the hallway, and Alex jumped, arms raised defensively. A door had been taken off its hinges. No, that description was too tame. A door had been _blown_ off its hinges, colliding with the lockers across the hall. 

A girl stepped out of the now-open classroom.

She was taller than him, older, and slender, with shoulder-length dark brown hair. She wore hiking boots, glasses, and a purple-striped sweater. 

Alex had dreamed about her, last night. Even her clothes were the same. 

Evidently, she recognized him, too, because she strode right up to him, a faint frown on her otherwise stoic face. "Where have you b-?" She froze in the middle of the word, her expression smoothing until her face was blank. She grabbed Alex's chin, and tilted it up, examining his face closely, especially his eyes.

Alex gasped. This close, he could see past the reflections on her glasses. Her eyes were rose red.

"Mistaken identity," she said, finally, brusquely. "Apologies." She released Alex's chin and spun in the same moment. She had walked halfway down the hall before Alex realized what was happening.

"Wait!" he called. "Who are you?" The girl ignored him. He ran towards her. "Do you know Brandon Adrian Grant Walker-Rose?"

The girl stopped in the destroyed doorway, and turned to face him squarely. Her lips parted.

_Bang._

Alex watched with wide eyes as red stained the shoulder of the girl's sweater. But the girl didn't fall. She barely stumbled. Instead, she grinned, baring her teeth at someone behind Alex. 

He whirled, slipping and falling-- socks did not have good traction on linoleum-- in the process. He fell on his back and saw stars. 

His vision cleared in time to see Sheriff Sullivan shoot the girl twice more. The third time, she dodged sideways into the open classroom. Sheriff Sullivan made to follow her.

"What are you doing?" shouted Alex as the sheriff ran past him. 

"Stay down!" ordered the sheriff, barely glancing at Alex. He reached the door, bracing himself against the wall beside it before stepping into the doorway, gun raised. He cursed. "Gone," he said, lowering the gun. Only now did he turn his attention to Alex. "What are you doing here?"

Alex scooted away from the irate man. "I- I got lost," he said, finally getting his feet underneath himself. He kept his eyes on the sheriff, and especially the gun. He knew he wouldn't be able to outpace a bullet, but he was ready to bolt all the same. 

Sheriff Sullivan surveyed Alex suspiciously. "And just happened to run into one of Walker-Rose's simulacra?"

Some instinct told Alex to play dumb.

"She was a simulacra?" he asked, raising a hand to the back of his head. He would have a lump there in a couple of minutes. "But she seemed so real."

The sheriff nodded grimly, pointing behind him at where the girl had bleed on the floor. 

Except it wasn't blood pooling on the floor, but rose petals. 

"Wh- Why did you shoot her? She hadn't done anything."

"It," corrected the sheriff. He holstered his gun. "It isn't a person, it's a weapon. It could have done to you what it did to the door, and just as easily. Why were you with it?"

Alex eased himself back a step. "I don't know why she was here," he said, cautiously. "She mistook me for someone else."

"Who?" asked Sheriff Sullivan.

"She-- she didn't say. She said she was wrong. She was _leaving_."

The sheriff surveyed Alex suspiciously. "I suppose that could be true. Dealing with Walker-Rose is difficult. His motive is always the same, but his methods are inscrutable."

"Okay," said Alex, not soothed by that pronouncement. From his perspective, there hadn't been any reason to shoot the girl. But the statement also held a clue. "What motive?" he asked.

The sheriff's eyebrows disappeared behind his dark glasses. "Never you mind. It's sheriff's business, not for the public to..." He trailed off. Alex could see the outline of the man's inhuman yellow eyes. "He wanted to... Why can't I... Remember. He wanted to bring him back... Zachary. His name was Zachary. Your eyes-"

Alex flinched back from both the name and the sheriff's outstretched hand. It echoed in his ears. _Zachary, Zachary, Zachary._

"What did you do?!" demanded the sheriff, his face twisting into a mask of rage, his free hand going to his head.

Zachary. Alex was having similar trouble. No! Not like this! Not yet. Zachary. Zachary had caused this. If the sheriff would just _forget_.

_If everyone would forget--_

A sense of disorientation overcame Alex, but he blinked it away. Hadn't he been standing closer to the sheriff before? What had they been talking about?

"You should go back to the office," said the sheriff. "They called me because they thought you ran off."

"I've been trying!" snapped Alex. "I can't find it!"

The sheriff blinked. "You can't _find_ it?" He frowned. "Has anyone given you a sticker today?"

"A _sticker?_ "

"Turn around," ordered the sheriff, gruffly.

Reluctantly, Alex complied. 

The sheriff made a noise of disgust. "Kids," he said. He swiftly stepped up to Alex and removed something from his back with a tearing sound. 

Alex turned, startled, at the sound. The sheriff was now holding a small, round sticker with a maze design on it. 

"This is a labyrinth sticker," he said. "As long as you're wearing one, you'll be lost. Some kid probably put it on you as a hoke. You run into anyone today? Anyone touch your back?"

"Yeah," said Alex. The chaos in the hallway and on the bus came to mind. "A few. A kid named Trent?"

The sheriff made a noise of disgust. "I'll be having words with him. Maybe this time he'll finally be put where he belongs." Alex shuddered at the darkness in the sheriff's tine. "You'll be able to find your way. I need to take care of... this." He gestured at the mess of the hall.

"Um," said Alex, dubious, considering how lost he had been before. He glanced over his shoulder and did a double take. The outside door was _right there._ Well, not _right_ there, but clearly visible at the end of the hall. "How did I miss _that_?" asked Alex, incredulously.

"Magic," said the sheriff, as if the one word explained everything. 

Maybe it did.


	11. Blackout Bingo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a long one! Warning for violence and eye-scream type stuff in the second half. 
> 
> Thank you for reading! :)

Following the encounter with the simulacra and the sheriff, everything seemed more sinister. Naturally, his newfound and completely natural paranoia significantly impacted his ability to focus on his tests. 

Mr. Lambert kept asking him if he was okay. No, Alex was _not_ okay, but he couldn't exactly say that, could he? He'd seen the sheriff _shoot_ someone, but he couldn't _say so_ because...

Because...

Actually, he wasn't sure why. Maybe it was the fact everyone _should_ have heard the gunfire, but no one else was mentioning it, or his suspicion that the principal and the sheriff were somehow in league with each other... and against _him._

He glanced at the back wall of the office. Was Luke still in the record room? 

The thought brought him back to what he and Luke overheard, what Luke had said. Six murders by strangulation. 

Seven, if he counted Alice. 

Those were serial killer numbers. On the upside, that probably meant Alice's friends could be crossed off the list of suspects. Serial killers usually didn't go after people they knew directly. Although, in a place like this, with everyone trapped and isolated... 

Mr. Lambert made disappointed noises when he took Alex's test papers at the end of the day. Alex had made essentially no progress, but he didn't care.

He was already tired of school. 

Who wouldn't be? School had such wonderful features as an abandoned wing, two school curse, and students who thought magic was a good thing to play pranks with. It was like a horror movie waiting to happen. 

Oh, and his feet hurt. These shoes did _not_ fit properly. 

Therefore, Alex approached the bus with a sense of relief. At least at Alice's house he could take off these awful shoes.

Alice grabbed him.

"We aren't going home yet," she informed Alex, Ashton, and a miserable Luke. 

"Why?" asked Alex. 

"We need to investigate the grange," she informed him, imperiously. "Besides, Luke's got some stuff, and he's going to do some stuff for us."

"What stuff?"

"Stuff. We can't talk about it here."

"Won't your parents worry?" asked Alex. He did want to figure out who had killed Alice, and he wanted to find Walker-Rose even more, but this afternoon he only wanted to curl up in Ashton's bed and go to sleep. Preferably without these shoes on. 

"Not really," said Alice. "They think Ashton and I are in the literature club."

"You two _are_ in the literature club," said Luke, aggrieved. "Stop saying things that make you sound like some kind of delinquent."

"Well, literature club doesn't meet on Thursdays, and my parents think it does, so I _am_ a delinquent. Come on, we just need to find a ride to the grange."

"You're telling me you live in a town plagued with sorcerers, one of whom turned Ashton, your brother, into a crow, and _literal_ curses and your parents don't keep track of where you are at all times?" Alex couldn't keep the disbelief out of his tone. Scratch that. He didn't _bother_ to keep the disbelief out of his tone. 

"It isn't _that_ dangerous."

"Says the girl who got strangled."

 _"Almost_ got strangled," corrected Alice, her voice low. "And we're trying to keep that from happening again."

"What about Luke? Aren't _his_ parents going to worry?"

"I stay after school to do student council stuff most days," said Luke, shrugging, but looking pained, "and my parents work at City Hall, so they don't come home until late."

"Hey!" interjected Alice, before Alex could come up with another objection. "I bet Flora's mom will drive us. Ms. Anger!" she called, abandoning the conversation and running up to the woman.

"You did tell her six people have been killed, right?" asked Alex, noting the startled expression on Ms Anger's face, and the bemused one on Flora's.

"Yeah," said Luke. "It might seem weird, but this is how Alice acts when she's stressed. Or scared, I guess. She's way more mellow, usually. Let's keep her from terrifying Ms. Anger."

Alice was rambling on about... Actually, Alex couldn't make heads or tails of what she was saying, but it sounded convincing and had rendered Ms. Anger speechless.

"Alice," interrupted Flora, sounding a little exasperated. " _Why_ do you need to go to the grange?"

"For a lit club project!" explained Alice, brightly. "We're supposed to write a story in a creepy place. For atmosphere. I thought, the grange is creepy, but safe, so." She shrugged.

Flora frowned. "Didn't they find Misty Motley's body there last night?"

"Yeah, but that was last night, and in the basement. We aren't going _there,_ and tons of people will be at the grange. We'll be totally fine. Won't we, Luke?"

"Yeah." He sighed, heavily. "Totally fine."

"We need a ride--"

"I can't," said Ms. Anger. "Flora has an appointment."

"Ugh!" groaned Flora. "The nutritionist, again?"

"For your health, love," said Ms. Anger. Her voice sounded thin.

"The only thing making me sick is the stuff he keeps giving me. He isn't even a real nutritionist. _One_ online class hardly qualifies--"

"Flora!" snapped Ms. Anger. Flora huffed, and crossed her arms before dropping into her seat. "I am sorry, but you'll have to find someone else."

Without any more explanation, Ms. Anger walked around the car to the driver's side, got in and drove off. 

"Jeez," said Alice.

"That was weird," observed Alex, "and kind of rude."

"What? No, no, not what I meant. Flora's got, like, problems. Nutrition problems. Her hair is green, right?"

Alex turned to face Alice more fully. "So, she dyes it? So what?"

"Yeah, she doesn't dye it. The color is part of her magic. She gets food from sunlight. Like plants do."

"Wouldn't that make her _not_ have nutrition problems?"

"You do remember the conversation we had this morning, right? About the weather and the lack of sunlight? I don't think I've seen the sun with my actual eyes since, like, forever."

"Since Walker-Rose came to town, anyway," said Luke.

"Oh. Yeah," said Alex, now understanding. Mostly.

"Yeah, 'oh.' I hope she hasn't had another setback. She gets sick, sometimes, and Ms. Anger gets, well, _angry_."

"Is that, like, her actual name?"

"Yeah."

They all fell silent, grimly looking down the road Ms. Anger's car had disappeared down. 

"We still need a ride," said Luke.

"Eh," said Alice. "We can walk. It isn't far."

"Yes, it is," said Luke, crossing his arms, "and City Hall is farther. We'll just have to go do what we're _supposed_ to be doing. Club activities." Luke didn't sound too disappointed.

"We can take the public bus," said Alice. 

"Ashton can't. It's against the first rule. Outsiders use the bus system all the time."

"Yeah, but he can fly, so-- Ouch, Ashton. Moody much?" She brushed her brother off her head, crossed her arms, pouting. "You could ride on top, too, I guess, and hold on to the railings on top?" Ashton did not appear to be terribly happy about that option, either.

Luke sighed heavily. "What about Mrs. Rice?" he offered, dispirited.

"What _about_ Mrs. Rice?"

"She does bingo at the grange, doesn't she?"

"Oh, yeah," said Alice. "She does, doesn't she? And she isn't involved with lit club, so she won't know we're lying! Luke, you're a genius! I knew there was a reason I loved you!" She kissed him. He blushed, hard. So hard he glowed. 

"Y-yeah. We have to hurry before she leaves, though," said the glowing boy. 

"Right!" she said. She grabbed Alex. "This way! She parks on the other side, because she doesn't like the trees!"

"Shouldn't you be grabbing Luke? _He's_ your boyfriend!"

"He's not the one who got lost in a school whose entire campus can be crossed in fifteen minutes. If you're a turtle. And, yeah, we all heard about that."

They reached the other parking lot in time to see a cherry red Volkswagen Beetle pull out to the road. Alice swore.

"Alice!" exclaimed Luke.

"Well, that was our ride," said Alice, unrepentant, gesturing at the road and the rapidly retreating car.

"Yeah, but you don't have to swear."

"No, but we do have to walk."

The road did not have a sidewalk, but it did have a very large margin in which the three of them could comfortably walk. Ashton, meanwhile, decided he was going to ride on Alex.

"How far away is the grange?" asked Alex, re-thinking his use of the term 'comfortable.' His shoes were not.

"Two miles," grumbled Luke.

"Ah," said Alex. He was not looking forward to walking that distance in these shoes. "Um, Alice, you said you had something to tell us?"

"No, but Luke did. Tell us, Luke!"

"Not in public!"

"Dude, we're the only ones walking here. This is as private as we're gonna get."

"There could be someone in the trees! There are houses near here, and Mrs. Maple is an obsessive gardener." He pointed at the trees ahead of them as he said this. Behind them, Alex glimpsed the wood siding of a house. 

"Then whisper," said Alice, mercilessly.

Luke sighed through his nose. "Fine," he said. At a whisper, he continued, "I decided I to try to look at the case files at City Hall for you. Just the files for the murders," he cautioned, "and just _looking_ at the numbers and victims. If you want more, you'll have to do your ghost spying routine."

"I'm confused."

"Luke's parents work at City Hall, so they'll let him in the building. Which is _much_ better than sending me in astrally. When I'm astral, I can't touch anything, so I can't open stuff like books or drawers, or turn on lights."

"Yeah, but you _can_ go through walls and doors," said Luke, "and, most importantly, _you can't get caught._ "

Oh, great. This was shaping up into a fight. 

"Hey," said Alex, with forced casualness, "um, I was wondering, how do you know what your magic is? I mean, some of them are pretty specialized? Like, being able to make stickers that make people lost? How do you figure out you can do that?"

Alice shrugged. "You just do."

"Like, it pops into your head as soon as you have it?"

"No," said Luke. "Alice has had her magic for a long time, so she doesn't remember."

"Hey!" complained Alice.

"You don't! You were like, five, or something. Anyway, it's more like, um..." Luke looked up, thinking. "If you're in a situation where it would be _useful,_ the basics will kinda... Show up."

"So they _do_ pop into your head?" asked Alex.

"Only the _basics,"_ stressed Luke. "Like, for me, I learned how to use my magic when the power went out at our house one night. It was like... something inside me had been unlocked. Glowing was useful. So I did. But it _didn't_ tell me I could do _patterns_ of glow. I had to figure that out and practice it on my own."

"That makes sense," said Alex.

They walked in relative silence for a while longer, trees dripping on them, birds yelling at them. Occasionally, Ashton would yell back, and Alex had to wonder if they were real birds or transformed humans like Ashton.

The silence was peaceful. Predictably, it began to grate on Alex's nerves. 

"Alice?" started Alex. "Uh, about the other thing, the thing you said you would help me with?"

"Yeah, Luke will probably be cool with it," said Alice, carelessly. 

"Oh my God, please tell me that you aren't, like, on a quest to get your memory back, or for revenge or something."

"Is- is that a thing that happens?" asked Alex, momentarily distracted. "Is that a thing that _can_ happen? Is there some magic or whatever that can bring my memory back?"

"No," said Luke. "I don't think so, anyway. But people who try to find magic solutions to their problems usually wind up in a lot of trouble. That's where sorcerers come from, basically."

"What about- Alice, you mentioned something about a family, the Oro-somethings."

"The Oroitzes, yeah," said Luke. "But, as far as I know, they _cause_ amnesia, they don't _cure_ it. I remember Mom complaining about that. Something about getting the mayor a memory aid, because he kept missing meetings."

If they Oroitzes took away memories, could they have taken Alex's? Was his amnesia natural?

Alex sighed. Unless the Oroitzes tried to stop him from finding Brandon Adrian Grant Walker-Rose, it didn't matter. 

He shook his head. "Anyway, that isn't what I was talking about."

"Oh, god, I know that tone. _Alice_ uses that tone. It's something worse isn't it? Alice, how do you get me into these situations?"

"Come on, you love me," said Alice, "and it isn't _that_ bad."

"This is going to end with all of us killed, isn't it?" mourned Luke, head tipped back as if he was asking the sky.

"Gosh, you're dramatic."

"I'm trying to find Brandon Adrian Grant Walker-Rose!" said Alex, before the conversation could escalate.

Luke cast his hands up in despair. "I was right. It was worse. Is worse. At least he's never killed anyone, and there are a lot more bird accessible places now than last year." Luke sighed. "I am not helping you find him. I don't even want to know _why_ you want to find him."

"Right, right, I'm not-- I didn't expect you to. I need thoughts about this that aren't mine."

"Sure," said Alice, "shoot."

"While I was lost, I ran into one of the simulacra. Apparently, I look like someone she was searching for, but she said it was a mistaken identity, and she was leaving, and Sheriff Sullivan shot her."

"Ah, so that's what that sound was," said Alice, contemplatively. "Weird. We should have done a lockdown."

Alex tilted his head. "You mean, I'm not the weird one for thinking that?"

"Yeah. I mean, it _is_ still a shooting in the school, although I can understand not wanting it to be official, what with a simulacra being involved. You can't exactly put that in a police report," said Alice. 

"But the sound...?"

"Lots of things make bangs," said Luke, shrugging. "Cars, fireworks, magic, _legal_ gunfire..."

"Are you okay, though?" asked Alice. "The simulacra didn't hurt you?"

Alex's chest twinged oddly at the idea Alice thought the _simulacra_ had been the dangerous one in that situation. "I'm fine," he said. "I just don't know how I'm supposed to feel about it. I'm _sure_ I know her, but she said she didn't."

"Maybe you needed to say a password or something," suggested Alice. "The simulacra are kinda like robots, is what I've heard. They've got to be programed."

"Or it really was a mistake," said Luke. "I'd prefer for you not to be a sorcerer's minion, all things considered."

"Yeah, I guess," said Alex. At least then he'd have a history. "How much farther?"

"Little under a mile, now. You'll be able to see the grange at the top of this next hill. Which simulacra was it?"

"Which?"

"Yeah, five of them look like real people," said Alice. "The big guy, the red twin, the glasses girl, and the woman in white."

"That's four," said Alex as they topped the hill. "Didn't you say five?"

"I- Huh. Yeah. I did. Dang. I thought I had them all memorized. Luke, do you remember who the fifth guy is?"

"Um, so the big guy is this super tall strongman type dude. Then the red twin... He's the one who looks the same as Walker-Rose, right? Except for the eyes."

"Yeah."

Luke nodded. "Glasses girl, self explanatory. She kinda looks like a high schooler, or a college student. She wears stripes. Um, the woman in white is older, might be based on someone who was sick. She's skinny. She actually doesn't wear white too often. I think it was only one time. I had heard Walker-Rose put her in a wedding dress to fool somebody into something? Some florist? Eh. It was a long time ago." He paused for a moment. "Wait..."

"That's still only four," pointed out Alex.

"It'll come to us eventually," said Alice. "Like when you're doing the states, you always forget Maryland."

"No, I don't," said Luke. "How do you forget Maryland?"

"Hey, Alex. There's the grange." Alice was pointing at a tall, pale blue house surrounded by cars. 

The house looked more or less like a normal family home. It had a porch, front door, and windows. All the normal accoutrements. However, it also had the air of a public building. 

Alex couldn't put his finger on why. Maybe it was the cars parked around it, or the parking lot, or the people milling around, or the concrete wheelchair ramps. The way the building was unshielded by trees, or shrubbery, completely visible from the road, may also have been a factor.

Or, possibly, it was the sign out front, advertising this building to be the Wishing Grange.

"So," said Alice, as they continued their walk towards the building, "before we get there, here's the pla--"

Alice stopped, falling out of sync with Alex and Luke. Alex turned back towards her, surprised, Luke doing the same. Alice was standing stock still, hands raised to her throat, an expression of horror on her face.

"Alice?" said Luke. "Are you okay?"

Alice opened her mouth but didn't say a word. She fell to her knees. Alex and Luke both ran to her, worried. Alex gasped as he saw hand shaped bruises forming on Alice's throat. 

"Invisibility!" exclaimed Luke immediately. He acted quickly, using his backpack to flail around in the space where an invisible strangler would be. His bag hit nothing. 

Neither did Ashton, as he flitted, cawing, through the air around his sister.

"Luke!" shouted Alex. Alice's lips were growing blue and he couldn't see, or otherwise interact with, anything around her throat, except for the darkening bruise. "What do you need to do magic on someone from a distance? There must be _some_ rule."

"There is, um. An object-- No. Area of effect?"

"Wouldn't that get us, too?" They were standing on either side of Alice.

"Um... Line of sight! Line of sight! But where--?"

"Doesn't matter, help me hide her!" demanded Alex. He stripped off his jacket and tried to shield Alice with it. 

Luke followed suit. "This isn't working! How did you save her before?"

"I didn't, I-"

He knew how to solve this. Oh, that was _weird._ Alice and Luke's brief explanation about magic had not braced him for _this._

"Give me your hand," said Alex, holding his out and letting his jacket fall. He squeezed his eyes shut and threw his other arm in front of his face as Luke, unquestioning, grabbed his hand.

Light burned red through his eyelids, leaving spots dancing around the edges of his vision.

Alice gasped, raggedly, and coughed. 

It worked. It had _worked._

Luke was staring at him, wide-eyed. "How did you--?"

"Later! Carry her! We need to get behind a wall or something!"

"Sorry!" He picked up Alice and slung her over his shoulder. "Sorry, Alice!"

It was a good thing Alice was _tiny._

They started running. Alex, unencumbered, began to pull away. He looked over his shoulder.

"You go ahead," huffed Luke. "Call the police. And Dr. Jason."

"Right!" said Alex, putting on another burst of speed. 

Ashton was already halfway to the grange, for all the good it would do them. Although, Alex could not discount the possibility that someone there spoke crow.

In the grange parking lot, people were rubbing their eyes and complaining loudly about the light. Alex ignored them and jumped over the steps. He slammed the grange door open with so much force it rebounded from the wall and smacked him in the face. 

He was undeterred. 

"Call nine-one-one!" he shouted. The little old ladies in the room looked up from their bingo catds with surprised expressions. "My friend's been attacked!"

"Oh dear!" said the slightly-younger lady operating the bingo... Thing. Alex had no idea what to call it. A bingo machine? Her name tag read 'Helen Rice.' "Gina, where's the phone?"

"Back room, dear," said a _very_ little lady. "Where's your friend, young man?" 

"Lu- Luke's carrying her," said Alex, leaning against the door, and gesturing over his shoulder. He was out of breath. He looked back. Luke had gotten to the parking lot.

Alice was struggling with something again. The flash must have worn off. Drat.

Luke angled for the ramp instead of the steps. The switchback turn in middle made him look like an idiot, and the extra time in the open killed Alex's nerves, but Alex understood Luke's choice. Getting up the stairs with all that extra weight after running would have been difficult, at best. 

Alex stepped out of the way as Luke barreled into the grange, and closed the door behind them. Luke collapsed on the floor. Several of the more mobile old ladies gathered around them, worrying. 

"Alice? Are you...?"

"The police can't come!" said Helen Rice, leaning out of the back room, the curly phone cord wrapped around her arm. "They're stuck in a shootout at Lizzie's Diner!"

"With who?" demanded another woman.

"The Oliver sisters," said Helen Rice. "Ava says she's trying to raise the neighborhood watch, but it'll take a while."

"Bathroom!" exclaimed Alice, abruptly. "Where's the bathroom?"

About a dozen people pointed. "I'm gonna-- I'm gonna see if they, uh, still around," she got to her feet. "Out of body." She stumbled in the direction of the bathroom.

"Should we follow..?"

"No," said Luke, puffing. "Absolutely not. You don't follow girls into bathrooms, gosh."

"Oh," said Alex. He leaned up against the wall and slid to the floor, spent.

One of the women approached Alex, her bright blue eyes wide behind her thick glasses. A much younger woman hovered at her elbow. 

"I'm training to be a nurse," she said, "is there anything I can--?"

"You look exactly like Zachary," said Ms. Weatherall. 

"Who?" asked Alex. The name seemed familiar, but he couldn't place it.

"Zachary. He was my grandson." He eyes were sad. "He's been dead for years."

Alex opened his mouth to ask her to elaborate, but a shout from outside interrupted his question. A scream followed the shout, and was in turn followed by a series of increasingly panicked yells.

He turned to the door with a sense of trepidation and dread. Surely, the murderer wouldn't try to assault so many people. Not after they had taken care to stay out of sight. 

Alex should have watched the windows. 

Two broke at once. A beat latter, a third shattered in. Then a third, and a fourth, and Alex lost count, less concerned with the number of broken windows and more about the things coming through them. 

_Things._ That was the right way, the _only_ way, to describe them. They were humanoid, but not human. Their skin shone like plastic, their eyes were flat and red. 

But what really showed their inhumanity was the way they moved. They crept, they crawled, they _scuttled._

They weren't at all like the simulacra girl Alex had seen at the school, and he now understood why Alice had drawn a distinction. 

There were so _many_ of them. Dozens, easily. 

Before Alex could even begin to think of a way out of this, a way to escape, the simulacra had formed a rough semicircle around Luke, Alex, Ms. Weatherall, and the nurse. With the same movement, they pushed the other people in the room back, towards the far wall. 

Everyone went still, holding their breaths.

Footsteps approached one of the windows, and one more simulacra climbed up onto the windowsill, her boots crunching on the broken glass. Her head turned left and right as she took in the scene before her. Light reflected off her glasses, making it impossible for Alex to read her expression. 

She hopped down from the sill, scattering more glass, and walked towards Alex. The lesser simulacra shifted to give her room and closed ranks again when she had passed. 

Alex stepped back until his shoulders pressed against the wall. He could see the girl's eyes, flicking back and forth over his face like she was reading a book until they settled on his. They were red and textured and _right._ He couldn't imagine them any other color. 

"How are you doing that?" she asked. 

"Doing what?" he asked, still breathless from the run. 

"Hm." The girl pulled a flip phone from her pocket, opened it, and pressed a button. With extreme deliberateness, she put it to her ear and waited, not taking her eyes off Alex. "I found him," she said. A moment passed. "Understood." She closed the phone with a snap and put it back in her pocket. 

Alex took a deep, shuddering breath. "Did you-- Was that him?" No answer. "Who _are_ you?"

"She won't answer," said Luke. "She's just a puppet for Walker-Rose."

Alex bit his lip. With the other simulacra, he could believe that, but not with the girl. She was too alive. She was real. 

He glanced at the other two people stuck in the circle. The nurse-in-training looked terrified. On the other hand, Ms. Weatherall stood straight-backed and stoic, staring at the girl. 

Standing across from one another, Ms. Weatherall and the girl looked awfully similar. Their noses, ears, and chins were the same, although Ms. Weatherall's were marked with age. They even had the same haircut. Ms. Weatherall's skin was paler, but still...

Gears turned in Alex's mind. Was the simulacra girl based on Ms. Weatherall?

_Why?_

The door swung open, and Alex nearly jumped out of his skin. A tall, brown-skinned man stepped through. His arms bulged with muscles and strained at the fabric of his shirt as though he might tear through it at any moment. A crow sat on his shoulder. 

For a long, tense moment, the man glared down at Alex. But then he turned, and moved on to stand next to the girl, arms crossed. 

The crow stared at him, unblinking.

A second man walked in, and Alex couldn't breathe. He wore a leather jacket with patched elbows and wraparound sunglasses. Stubble shadowed his cheeks. His jeans were grimy. 

Alex had expected something more dramatic from a sorcerer. A robe and goatee, perhaps, even though neither of those things had been evident in the sketch. 

So, this was Brandon Adrian Grant Walker-Rose. 

Alex had only been looking for him for a day and a half, but it felt like forever. This was too fast. 

Something was wrong. This couldn't be right. This couldn't be so easy. 

"Mother," said Walker-Rose, nodding to Ms. Weatherall. 

"Brandon," she said, lifting her chin. She didn't look at Walker-Rose, instead focusing on the crow on the muscular man's shoulder. "Why are you doing this?"

"You know why. It's the only way for me to get my family back."

"Brandon, you still have family. Living family. Stop this."

The sorcerer's lips twitched. "I still have family," he repeated mockingly. "Is that why you changed your name from Rose to Weatherall?"

" _Back_ to Weatherall," said Ms. Weatherall, her voice breaking.

"Father's name not good enough for you?"

"My choice has nothing to do with Jefferson. Your victims tried to _kill_ me, Brandon. I had to change my name."

"And I suppose you're going to ignore your part in all this? In _creating_ my victims?" He gestured at the room around him, at the simulacra, at the cowering bingo ladies, at the broken windows, and sneered. "Of course you are."

The man turned to face Alex, anger written in every line of his face. Alex had never seen him that angry, even in the dream. What had he...?

The thought slipped through his fingers like smoke. There was something he had to do here, but he couldn't _remember._

Walker-Rose swooped down on Alex and used one hand to pin his shoulder. 

"Where is it?" he demanded. 

"Brandon!" exclaimed Ms. Weatherall. "Stop this!"

"Where's what?" Fear raced up and down his spine, but, _heck._ If he sold Alice out, she'd _die_. 

"The watch," said the man. "You had it." He patted down Alex, searching his pockets. "Where is it?"

"Brandon Adrian Grant Weatherall-Rose, you listen to me!"

Walker-Rose pulled his lips back in a snarl and took half an angry step towards her. "That's not my name anymore! Did you forget I was _married?_ " The crow fluttered.

"Leave him be!" pleaded Ms. Weatherall. "Please, Brandon, please, what you're doing is wrong. This is a _child._ The same age Zachary w--"

"Just a child," repeated the man. "Just a child?! This _mockery?_ " He turned back to Alex. He ran his thumb, roughly, over Alex's right eye. "Who has corrupted you, puppet? Put contacts and color in your eye?" He dug his finger in deeper and Alex cried out. 

It hurt!

"Where is the watch? Where is Lazarus' watch?" 

"I-- I don't know!" Alex didn't writhe, but only because moving _hurt._ The man was holding _too tight._

"Liar!" 

Alex screamed as the man pressed his thumb farther into his eye, and he tried to grab the man's wrists to push him away, but the man was too strong and--

A crow cawed, loudly. Was that Ashton, or the crow the simulacra had brought with them?

"Stop it!" shouted Luke. 

The pressure on Alex's eye and body abruptly stopped, and he scooted _away._ He slammed one hand over his injured eye and tried to blink the tears from his good eye. He needed to _see._

Luke, standing over him protectively, was the first thing he could properly identify, but the _important_ thing was to find Walker-Rose, so they could _get away._ He located the man quickly, sprawled on the floor where Luke had pushed him. 

For the second time since the man had walked in the door, Alex had the thought that this was _too easy._

"You aren't him," said Alex. It was strange how relieved that made him, how happy it made him. But if that wasn't Brandon Adrian Grant Walker-Rose, where was he?

He turned away, his one working eye flicking over to the girl and the tall man, still standing by, stoically, impassively. Neither of them were acting. Neither of them were doing anything, nor were the lesser simulacra.

Where was the crow?

His eye went back to Luke. The crow flew over the other boy's head. 

"Duck!" he shouted, trying and failing to push Luke over, out of the way. 

He was far too late.

As soon as the crow's claws touched skin, Luke gasped and froze. Alex watched in horror as Luke's skin and clothes darkened, turned black, and started to _shrink_. They pulled inwards, inwards, inwards, towards where Luke's head had been. They took on the shape and texture of feathers, wings, scaly legs. A moment later, Luke fell out of the air, a crow. 

The other crow followed him down, and, for that crow, the transformation reversed itself. The feathers expanded, solidified into a human form, and gained color. 

This, _this_ was Brandon Adrian Grant Walker-Rose. Unlike the simulacra, he wore no sunglasses. His eyes were blue, the same color as Ms. Weatherall's.

(The same color as Alex's?)

"Where is the watch?" asked the sorcerer, much more calmly than his doppelganger had. He was holding Luke down with one hand as Luke's wings fluttered helplessly.

"Why do you even want it?" asked Alex.

"You wouldn't understand," said the Walker-Rose, his voice eerily cool. "Not if you choose to wear that face in front of me. I am continually staggered at the lengths to which Sullivan will go to bait me. Where _did_ he find a shapeshifter? What's your name?"

"I'm not a shapeshifter," protested Alex. He knew the sorcerer wouldn't believe him, but he had to try, for Alice, and Luke, if nothing else. "My name is Alex. I'm not copying anyone, not on purpose. Please, let Luke go."

"You don't know? Sullivan didn't tell you? Or did his Oroitz pets make you forget? It doesn't matter. If he's doing this, Sullivan _knows_. Or- He wants me to think that. The trick with the eyes could be a ruse..." The sorcerer tilted his head. "Jessica, check his blood."

The girl in purple marched up to Alex. She held a knife in her hand. _How_ had he not noticed the knife before?

What did 'check his blood' mean?

He didn't like this. 

"What are you--?"

The girl's hand licked out suddenly, and Alex felt a pinch along his upper left arm and a spreading heat. He brought up his right hand over the wound. Red dripped from between his fingers. 

Injuries occupied both of his hands. _Not good._

Walker-Rose hissed. "I do wonder how he corrupted you. How he turned you against me."

"I don't know what you're talking about," said Alex, trying to stem the flow of blood. "I haven't turned against you, I don't know what's going on."

The sorcerer walked over to Alex, and touched his face gently, sympathetically. A moment later his expression hardened. "It doesn't matter. I need the watch."

Luke cried out, his caw echoing in the otherwise silent grange. 

"Please," said Alex, looking up at the sorcerer. "I don't have it. Please don't hurt Luke!"

"What kind of a monster do you think I am? I wouldn't hurt a child."

"You hurt _me."_

"My orders were misinterpreted. He will be given more detailed instructions in the future." The sorcerer sent a disgusted glance in the simulacra's direction. He turned back to Alex. "In any case, you aren't a child, no matter _what_ Sullivan has made you think."

Walker-Rose didn't believe him. Somehow, that hurt more than the knife wound or his eye. 

"If you _think_ you care about this child," he pointed at Luke, "tell me where the watch is. I'll turn him back. I'll turn them all back. I'll even turn myself in to Sullivan, once everything is over."

"I don't _have_ it," Alex shouted, almost screamed. 

"Then tell Sullivan the same thing," said the sorcerer. "Tell him what I will do, if only I am given the watch."

There was a gasp and a series of murmurs as sirens began to wail in the distance. 

"My signal to go," he said, standing. "Sullivan is always far ahead of the cars." His tone turned sardonic. "And here I thought the Olivers could keep him occupied for a whole hour."

The door burst open, knocking over Alex, who had managed to wind up directly in front of it.

Alex decided he hated that door.

"Rose!" shouted Sheriff Sullivan. "Freeze!" A series of shots rang out and were quickly followed by a crazed cackle and a thunder of footsteps. "He's getting away!"

"Wait!" shouted Alex, reaching blindly upwards. Walker-Rose couldn't be leaving, not yet! Alex hadn't even figured out what he had to do! He needed to stop him, needed to tell him-!

The world dissolved in electric pain.


	12. Enter the Glass

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was hard to edit... If you see anything weird, please tell me!

Alice stumbled out of the bathroom, having failed to find any trace of her attacker around the grange or on the road. Astral travel on the toilet, seat down or otherwise, was _not_ advisable. Her legs burned with pins and needles.

More broken glass lay scattered on the floor than she expected. Of course, she'd been expecting _none,_ so that wasn't a great metric to judge things by.

Maybe she should have walked through the door, rather than floating through the wall. Then she might have a better grasp of the current situation. 

Was it too late to back up and hide in the bathroom again?

She put her hand on the doorknob and began to edge backwards. 

Where was Ashton? Luke? Alex? She couldn't find any of them.

The one person she _did_ see and recognize was Sheriff Sullivan. He seemed to be... arresting someone? Handcuffing a person on the ground? Her heart leapt. Had he managed to catch the murderer? So soon?

She felt like laughing. 

Right up until she saw _who_ he was arresting. She expressed her newfound anger with an inarticulate shout and ran forward. 

Correction: She _tried_ to run forward. Her leg cramped up and she fell, narrowly missing a pile of broken glass. 

Someone shouted her name and, by the time she pushed herself up, the sheriff was crouched in front of her. 

"Alice, are you alright?" asked Sheriff Sullivan. 

"What are you doing to Alex?" demanded Alice. 

The sheriff's lips thinned. "I... Alice... I am sorry to put you through this, but there _is_ no Alex."

"Then who is _that?_ " asked Alice, gesturing wildly. Having come up with the pseudonym herself, she knew Alex's name was not, in fact, Alex, but something about the sheriff's intonation told her that he wasn't talking about that. 

"A simulacra," said the sheriff, tiredly. "I am so sorry that I put you and your family in danger. If I suspected at all..."

"What--" said Alice. "That doesn't make sense! He has _blue eyes._ You-- We have _pictures_ of all the real-looking ones."

Sheriff Sullivan stood up and pointed to the ground by the door. Alice scrambled to her feet. Red petals were scattered on the floor near where Alex had been lying. 

"... Those could have come from anywhere. How do you they're even rose petals?" 

Alex was _weird,_ but she would have noticed if he'd been bleeding rose petals when they first met. Although, she couldn't remember seeing his blood hit the ground... it didn't matter. This was some kind of trick.

"Alice... I understand how you feel, but we saw his blood turn into those petals, and he _is_ on the wanted posters."

"... What?"

"He's on the posters."

"No."

"Walker-Rose seems to have acquired a memory modification ability," said the sheriff with a sigh, "and used it to erase all human memory of his fifth greater simulacra." 

Alice shook her head. This-- Alex was her friend. He had _magic._ Magic he used to save her life.The simulacra _didn't,_ because they weren't people.

"I don't know what Walker-Rose is playing at," said Sheriff Sullivan. "But it's over. We finally have one of his simulacra--"

"But Alex _isn't,_ he--"

The sheriff shook his head and stepped away. "I will call your parents to come pick you and your brother up."

Which reminded Alice: she had come here with two other people. She grabbed the sheriff's arm.

"Where are Ashton and Luke?" She hated the smallness of her voice. She _should_ be arguing for Alex, but the sheriff's words scared her, and her mother would (double) kill her if anything happened to her little brother. 

A pair of crows perched on one of the card tables. One of them she recognized immediately as Ashton. The other was obviously new at the whole 'crow' thing, still getting feet and and wings underneath him.

"Oh my gosh," she said, raising her hands to her mouth. "Luke!"

"He's fine," said Sheriff Sullivan. "His transformation _is_ a tragedy. But now we have hope of defeating Walker-Rose and curing everyone he cursed."

Alice found herself shaking. "Because of Alex."

"Because of the _simulacra."_

"He's not a simulacra!" shouted Alice, whirling to face the sheriff fully, her earlier reticence forgotten. "He used magic!"

A few eyebrow hairs made themselves visible over the rims of Sheriff Sullivan's sunglasses. "When? What did he do?"

"I, uh." Alice wasn't entirely clear on what Alex had done, seeing as she had been suffering from a slight oxygen deficiency when he did it. Time for a subject change. "He saved me from being strangled. Where were _you_ , during all of that?"

The sheriff's regard turned cool. "I thought so. Go to your brother."

"You can't do this! Alex hasn't _done_ anything!"

"Yes, he has!" roared the sheriff. Then he sighed, pinching his nose. "I'm not going to argue about this with you."

"Well, too late!" Alice shouted back, waving her arms. "You're gonna say because he's bleeding rose petals he's less than human? Well, fine! What about you with your stupid eyes? What about all the crows? I have a friend who has green hair and eats sunlight, what about her? What about--?"

"Enough," said Sheriff Sullivan, his voice harsh and icy.

Alice swallowed her next words. She's in dangerous waters. 

Hands balled into fists, she made her way to Ashton and Luke. She picked them up, to squawks of protest, and found a glass-free chair to sit on. 

She closed her eyes. She would give a lot for the ability to have a proper conversation with either Ashton or Luke. Maybe then they could have come up with some plan to keep Alex from being arrested.

Or whatever actually happened. If the sheriff didn't see Alex as human, what would he do to him?

The two crows took a minute to settle themselves on her knees. Luke had yet to figure out how to balance properly in a crow's body. Alice placed one hand on the side of her leg, a barrier, so he wouldn't fall off. 

"Are you okay?" she asked. 

Both nodded, Ashton sharply, Luke more hesitantly.

"I'm so sorry I dragged you into this, Luke. I should have left you alone. I shouldn't have asked you."

Luke awkwardly brushed her hand with his wing. She couldn't tell if he meant to or not. 

"I need to see what they're doing to Alex," she said. "You'll tell me what happened here later, okay?" Again, she received a pair of nods. "I'm going now."

Alice stepped out of her body. 

Invisible and untouchable, she passed through the swarm of deputies and witnesses. No one gave her body a second glance. 

She exited the grange wall just in time to watch Alex get shoved into the back of a police car and broke into a run. When she slid through the car door, the sight that greeted her was...

Sickening. 

Even curled in a fetal position, Alex had more visible injuries than Alice, and she had almost been strangled to death. Self-conscious, she touched her neck. The bruises did not transfer to her astral form, but they'd hurt when she finally did return to her body. 

Alex's would be hurting now.

Alice floated closer. Alex had his face buried in his knees, but his visible ear and cheekbone had small cuts on them, and a large bruise discolored his jawline. The cuts sparkled. So did portions of his clothes.

Had the deputies dragged him through broken glass?

A cut on Alex's upper arm had bled enough for the blood to form sizable stains all up and down his sleeve. Blood dripped down his hand and off his smallest finger, landing behind him on the seat. 

Alice leaned closer to his hands, fascinated despite herself. Beneath them was a pile of rose petals. 

She took a deep and entirely imaginary breath.

It didn't matter. 

Rose petals or not, simulacra or not, Alex had saved her life more than once. She'd talked to him. He was a person. 

As long as he hadn't tried to kill someone while she was astrally projecting in the bathroom, she would keep up her end of their deal and help him.

Which, she reflected, as the police car sped off, leaving her behind, might not be very much at all. 

They hadn't even bothered to buckle him in. 

She hugged herself, floating a few inches above the ground. How could she fix this? She _hated_ this. She wanted to punch something. Well, someone. Some _one_. Alex didn't deserve this.

Well, if books taught her anything, it was that gathering information was the first step in gaining control of a situation. That's what she had been trying to do with the school records, not that it had worked out well. 

Where could she _get_ information? Who else would be looking for information?

Sheriff Sullivan.

Hopefully, he wouldn't leave for a while yet. Her astral body couldn't ride in cars, and flying to the sheriff's office would take too long.

 _Hoping_ didn't get anything done. She flew back into the grange. 

The sheriff had commandeered several of the grange's back rooms to use for interviews. As these back rooms were, for the most part, _closets,_ this gave the interviews a surreal quality. 

The giant Santa decoration the grange put up every year looked distinctly out of place smiling over Sheriff Sullivan's head.

Despite the odd props, Alice managed to gather the gist of what had happened after she locked herself in the bathroom.

A simulacra army had shown up, crawled through the windows, and attacked Alex and Luke. Luke had been turned into a crow. Either Walker-Rose or his lookalike simulacra had gotten into a shouting match with Ms. Weatherall, who may or may not have been his mother. Walker-Rose was searching for Lazarus Watchman's pocket watch. 

It shouldn't surprise her. Of _course_ the crazy sorcerer was looking for the thing that could bring back the dead. Why not? What a cliche. She should start calling him Voldemort, or something. 

She hadn't even the time to properly process her first death, she'd been almost killed again, and the most notorious sorcerer in town was after her. 

Eighth most notorious sorcerer. Whatever. _Heck._ This guy turned people into birds for kicks and giggles, and had shown no compunction against screwing with other people's lives in general. 

Well, he wasn't after Alice, per se, but the only thing keeping her alive.

Actually, that might be worse. 

A deputy brought Ms. Weatherall, Alice's little old neighbor, into the room... and preempted the sheriff.

"How did you know the boy was a simulacra?" she asked.

Alice drifted around to face at Ms. Weatherall more directly. She looked... defiant. Furious, but quietly so. Effectively so. Alice was immediately impressed. Her own near-tantrum hadn't been anywhere near this scary. Or dignified.

The sheriff pulled a creased piece of paper out of his pocket. "I found this pinned to the cork-board in the vestibule at Lizzie's Diner." He unfolded it and showed it to Ms Weatherall. Alice shifted to float next to Ms. Weatherall.

On the paper was a picture, or, more accurately, a series of pictures. The first and largest was a black-and-white police sketch of Alex, of all people, with the legend 'simulacra.'

Okay. That was pretty damning. Whatever. It didn't matter. 

Beneath the sketch were three smaller photographs. The first was of Alex standing among the other simulacra, all of them wearing sunglasses. The second was a head shot of Alex looking back over his shoulder. In the last photo, he was standing next to the glasses girl, his hands stuffed into his pockets. Both of them were looking up and to the right, at something outside of the frame. Their eyes were red. 

The word 'information wanted' and 'highly dangerous' sat at the bottom of the paper, along with the Sheriff's Office's phone number.

Here's the thing: Alice had _seen_ this poster before. Her family ate at Lizzie's Diner every Sunday morning, except for holidays. But, until now, she hadn't remembered it. Hadn't remembered Alex in it. 

So, the sheriff's memory modification claim had some truth to it. Great. Wonderful. Perfect. 

Alice ran her hands through her hair and resisted the urge to pull on it. Well, whatever else Alex, or simulacra Alex, or Alex's simulacra double had done, he had never killed anyone. She would have heard about it if a simulacra killed someone. 

Unless her memory of it had been erased. 

Ugh, this was so confusing! She'd already been murdered! She shouldn't have to worry about _also_ having selective amnesia. 

"I suppose that would do it," said Ms. Weatherall. "But that boy- That boy did not deserve what you did to him. He didn't deserve what Brandon did to him. You're both going to burn in hell for that."

Sheriff Sullivan frowned. "Are you trying to tell me you don't know what your son is planning?"

Ms. Weatherall laughed without humor. "Brandon asks me the same questions about _you_ , Edward."

"And what do you tell him?"

"Nothing," said Ms. Weatherall. " _You_ don't tell me anything, either." She closed her eyes. "Despite what you and Brandon think, I understand my part in this. I know exactly how much of this is my fault. But that child, he's innocent in this."

"This isn't _Pinnochio,_ Glenys," said Sheriff Sullivan, exasperated. "This is your last chance to actually help solve this problem."

"No," agreed Ms. Weatherall, "and there's no Blue Fairy. But this town has magic enough to cure cancer and raise the dead, not to mention keep all of us trapped here. How much more would it take to make a puppet into a real boy?"

The sheriff regarded Ms. Weatherall with a flat expression. "Fine. I won't waste anymore time trying to convince you that your son is a monster and your grandson is dead. Both of you clearly are incapable of accepting reality."

"Ha! I know what my son is, and I'm aware the boy isn't my grandson. Zachary would be in his twenties. You should grow up, too, Edward. It would suit you, I think."

Sheriff Sullivan rubbed the bridge of his nose. Then he stood and opened the door. "Take her home," he told the deputy standing there. "Make sure she's watched."

Alice took the opportunity to look back at her body. Gosh, her back would be sore tomorrow.

For a moment, she debated the pros and cons of following Ms. Weatherall versus returning to her body. 

Honestly, she should go back to her body. Her magic wasn't secret, and the police had lists. Someone would notice what she was doing eventually. 

On the other hand, information was worth a stiff back, and it no one could do anything to push her out of astral form. Heck, she had been murdered while astral. If dying didn't stop her magic, nothing would. 

Which was sort of a problem, honestly...

The sheriff wouldn't kill her, right?

But then she heard a car pulling into the grange driveway _angrily._ How a car could sound angry was beyond her, but the car _was_ angry, and, worse, Alice recognized it from both the sound and the glimpse she got of it through a broken window. 

The car was her mother's. Her parents were here.


	13. Photo Album

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for your feedback! It's very useful to me. I hope you're enjoying the story. :)

"What were you thinking?!" demanded Alice's father. He waited for them all to get home before he started interrogating Alice. He slammed his hands down on the table. Apparently, Alice didn't look like she was paying enough attention. She jumped. So did Ashton. "Lying to us about your club? Going to a murder scene? _Attacking the sheriff?_ You're lucky you weren't arrested!"

This tack took Alice, prepared to defend her friendship with Alex, by surprise. Her jaw went up and down. "I didn't attack the sheriff!" she said finally. "Who told you that?"

"Sheriff Sullivan!"

"And you believe him over me?"

"He's the _sheriff._ "

"Sweetie," said Alice's mother, "let Alice tell her side of the story, before making any decisions, please?" She gave Alice an encouraging nod. 

"Okay," said Alice. "I _did_ go to the grange, and maybe that was stupid, but I didn't _attack_ anyone. All I did was yell at the sheriff about Alex!"

"The simulacra?" said her mother.

"The simulacra?" Alice threw her hands in the air. "Is that all anyone cares about? You _met_ him, Mom. Did he seem like a simulacra to you?"

"Oh, sweetheart, they can be convincing."

"In _appearance._ We've all," she pointed around the table, "heard how they talk on the radio, when they're making demands. They're, like, monosyllabic trolls, or something. Except they're not monosyllabic. Robots! They're like robots. They wouldn't pass a Turing test. Alex isn't like that."

"I can't believe this," said Alice's father. "You're defending him? He lied to us. He came into our house, _slept in your brother's room,_ under false pretenses. He got you hurt, and Luke, your best friend, transformed. He could have killed you. The greater simulacra can punch through walls!"

"He didn't hurt me!" shouted Alice. This time it was her turn to stand and slam her hands down on the table. "This," she gestured to the fading bruises on her neck, "this isn't because of Alex. This had nothing to do with Alex! This," another angry gesture, "is all me!"

"That isn't even his name!"

"So what! He's my friend!"

"You've only known him for a day! You've-" Alice's father cut off as he seemed to realize something. "Did you meet him before?" he asked, voice dangerously low. 

"What?" said Alice, again blindsided. Her father sometimes made flying leaps of logic. "No."

He sighed, and sat down, heavily. "What aren't you telling us, Alice?"

"I'm telling you everything," said Alice, stubbornly.

"Clearly not, if you believe that the person who attacked you today wasn't... related to him."

Oh. Yeah. She did say something along those lines, huh? Crap. She needed to learn to think through what she said, and not just spew out the first thing that came to mind.

"Um," she said, wishing something would come to mind now. Preferably a really good lie.

"Alice," said her father. 

"He saved my life."

"You mean today?" asked her mother. 

"Yeah," said Alice. She stared down at her hands, then sniffed and rubbed her eyes. "And yesterday."

"Yesterday... But Alice, you told me you only met him when you saw him fall down the hill."

Alice shook her head. "No. I didn't see him fall down the hill. I only saw him after. I-- I was dead." She pulled the watch from under her shirt. "I _died_ , and he brought me back." She looked up, glaring. "He didn't kill me, before you start going on about that. They tried again today, while Alex was right in front of me, and he didn't do _anything._ Except try to help me.He wasn't even _looking_ at me when it started. He..." she pushed her hair out of her face. She was crying.

"Oh my gosh, Alice," said her mother, coming around the table to hug her. "We'll keep you safe. You're safe now."

"Is that Lazarus's pocket watch?" asked Alice's father, his voice faint. 

"Alex brought me back, Dad," said Alice, "and he helped Luke save me today. They-- The sheriff beat him up for no reason."

"How do you know he didn't have a reason?" asked Alice's father. "You were in the bathroom the whole time."

"Because he would've been _saying_ that reason, instead of being all like, 'Oooh, nooo, a simulacra.'" She waved her arms to emphasize her point, almost hitting her mother in the process. "Sorry."

She tucked her arms back in, close to her body. Her hands found the watch again and grasped it so hard her fingers ached. 

"Walker-Rose is after this. He doesn't know I have it, though. Only Alex and Ashton and you do. But once he does, he-- he's going to be after me, too, and I-- I don't know what to do."

"Okay, okay," said Alice's father. He leaned forward now, putting his elbows on the table, fingers stretched out towards Alice. "First, hide that again. Then, tell us everything."

A few hours later, the contents of a scrabble set and a plan of action lay spread over the table. The scrabble tiles were easier and more reliable than the normal combination of mime and intuition Alice and Ashton usually used to communicate.

Alice's father reached out and scattered the pieces, destroying the partial notes of the conversation. "We're all clear on what we're doing?"

Ashton nodded.

"Yes," said Alice, rubbing remnant stiffness out of her shoulders. She had scouted out her path astrally a few minutes ago.

Her parents stood, one after another. Alice stood, too, but she walked to the back door rather than the front, Ashton flitting to her shoulder. The back door had a bird door built into it, so Ashton could go in and out without waiting for someone else to work the door.

Ashton flew out. Alice waited, shrugging on her jacket. Ashton could fly away from most threats, and his black feathers made him hard to see in the dark. Their parents were adults. Therefore, Alice was, in their estimation, the most vulnerable of the four of them, magic watch that would keep her from dying notwithstanding. Alice didn't agree, but she had been outvoted. 

Ashton hopped back in through the door, and cawed, nodding. He hadn't seen anyone. Alice opened the door, the human door and went out, raising the hood of her jacket against the rain. 

She hurried down the back steps and ran through their scattered apple orchard to the property line and the hedge. She stopped, identified a weak spot, and pushed through. Gross. She was all wet and covered with leaves.

Only an unmown back lawn separated her from Ms. Weatherall's house. Alice would have to check herself for ticks after this. Her mom had a _thing_ about tall grass. 

She hurried across the lawn, hoping Ashton would properly warn her if her parents failed to keep the officer attached to Ms. Weatherall occupied. She reached Ms. Weatherall's back porch and knocked on the sliding glass door. Once. Twice. Three times.

Forcibly, she reminded herself Ms. Weatherall was very elderly. Ms. Weatherall probably heard her but was just taking her time getting here. Alice ran her hand through her wet hair, pushing it back into her hood.

At long last, Ms. Weatherall hobbled into view. She stared at Alice for a few seconds before shaking her head and walking forward to unlock the door and slide it open.

"I wondered if you would show up. Come on in." The old woman stepped away from the door. Somehow, she seemed a lot less frail here than she had back in the grange. "Take your shoes off," continued Ms. Weatherall. "Put them in the bin. I don't want that nosy busybody outside to find out you're here."

Alice followed the instructions and took off her jacket, folding it over her arm. "Thank you for talking to me," said Alice, unsure if Ms. Weatherall had actually agreed to do that.

Ms. Weatherall nodded, smiling faintly. "Follow me," she said. "I'll need you to do the bending and lifting. My back isn't what it used to be."

"Okay," said Alice. 

Ms. Weatherall lead Alice to a bedroom, and sat down, slowly, in a rocking chair. "Close the door," she ordered. Then she lifted her cane to point at a bookshelf across the room. "Bottom shelf. The photo album with the green binding."

Alice pulled the book out carefully. "So, I, um, I came to ask about Alex and Walker-Rose," she said, hoping she wouldn't offend or upset Ms. Weatherall. 

"Alex. Is that name something he came up with himself?"

"No," said Alice. "I gave it to him. He has amnesia."

"Amnesia," said Ms. Weatherall, slowly. "Odd. He forgets, and everyone forgets about him. Sounds like magic, doesn't it?"

"The whole thing sounds like magic," said Alice, bouncing impatiently on her toes. 

"I suppose that wouldn't sound unusual to you. You were born here, after all." Ms. Weatherall sighed. "I expected you, of course. At least one of you had to possess some measure of curiosity and compassion. Sit," she said, pointing at a footstool.

"If you were expecting my questions, do you have answers?"

"A few, perhaps. But I know very little about the games Brandon and Edward play, and it's in the nature of these things to leave with more questions than you came with. The goal isn't to find the right answers, but to ask the right questions." 

"Right," said Alice, still feeling suspicious. "Makes sense, I guess." She sat down. "So... Who _is_ Alex?"

"I have, unfortunately, been stricken with the same forgetfulness as everyone else," said Ms. Weatherall. "But I can show you who I suspect Brandon based him on, among other things."

Alice opened her mouth to agree and closed it again. Ms. Weatherall was being _suspiciously_ helpful. She expected to do at least ten minutes worth of convincing before they got to anything like an explanation.

"What are you getting from this?" she asked. 

"Oh, any number of things. An end to this destructive feud between Edward and Brandon. The redemption of my son. The chance to see my grandson. Or someone like him. I've had time to think about this. I have everything to gain and what would I lose? My life? My freedom? Age does that just as well." 

"Walker-Rose really _is_ your son, then?"

Ms. Weatherall nodded. "Open the book," she said, pointing at the album. "First page."

"I hope that's not how you avoid questions..." The last word trailed off as Alice caught sight of the pictures. They were Walker-Rose's wedding photos. "This is the woman in white," said Alice.

"Yes," agreed Ms. Weatherall. "That simulacra was modeled after Elaine Walker, Brandon's wife." She sighed. "Elaine died, oh, eleven years ago now. I only met her once. Jefferson and I already lived here when she and Brandon met, and we weren't able to go to the wedding. Brandon was quite cross with me for some time." 

Alice nodded, staring down at the familiar but happy faces. With smiles, they looked so alien. 

"But you aren't here to listen to me reminisce," Ms. Weatherall said, brushing away her sadness. "Look to his left, the best man."

Alice gasped. "The big guy!"

"Is that what they're calling him now?" asked Ms. Weatherall, slightly amused. "Again, not quite. When he lived, he was Richard Wylie, Brandon's best friend. He joined the army right out of high school and died overseas. You're starting to see a pattern? The girl is modeled after my daughter, Jessica. Brandon was still in middle school when she died. Car crash. I suppose it's telling he modeled one after himself."

"This is the guy who turned my brother and my boyfriend into crows. I'm not going to feel sorry for him."

"I understand. I've practically disowned him, for similar reasons." She motioned for Alice to turn the pages of the album. 

(Maybe Alice did feel sorry for him. Just a little.)

"Hyphenated last names are a tradition in our family, and Elaine like the idea. I wish she hadn't. Brandon might not be so powerful, or capable of the simulacra."

"Were ridiculously long names a tradition, too?" asked Alice, unable to keep the sarcasm from her words.

"Jefferson and I couldn't agree on a middle name," said Ms. Weatherall. "We compromised." She paused as Alice examined a photo that must have come from the honeymoon. "Turn the page."

On the next page, Elaine Walker-Rose was pregnant. Alice turned the page again. Again. "They had a baby," she said, looking at the baby, who wore blue footie pajamas. 

"Yes. Zachary. I never met him."

"He died?"

"Yes. A decade ago. He'd be in his twenties, now."

Alice bit her lip, and kept turning pages. The boy got older and looked more and more like Alex with each flip. Alice had anticipated that, considering what had been under discussion, but it still was _weird._ Like seeing a family member on TV.

"He made a copy of Alex, too, didn't he?"

"Of _Zachary,_ yes. Exactly the same as the day he died, except for the eyes."

"How did he... How did Zachary die?"

"Keep going," said Ms. Weatherall.

Alice frowned, but complied. The end was closer than the beginning. Was it just her imagination, or was the woman, Elaine, getting thinner? 

Sicker? 

Was that a wig? 

She paused for a moment, examining an image of Zachary sitting next to his mother on the couch, both of them smiling, socks on their hands and ears, before turning the page. 

This page had only one photo. Elaine had given up on both the wig and the penciled-on eyebrows.

"Cancer," Ms Weatherall explained. "Leukemia. They found it too late. All that year, I tried to convince Brandon and Elaine to come here. Our Jasons have been able to cure cancer for decades. Brandon had faith in science and medicine, though, just like I taught him... He was an architect, before. I never told him about magic, of course, but still..."

"Did Zachary get it, too?" 

"No," said Ms. Weatherall.

Alice shifted. "How did Walker-Rose get here? _Why_ did he come here?"

Ms. Weatherall raised an eyebrow. "We were not on good terms," she said, "but we were, and are, still family. And Zachary wanted to meet me."

"So, Zachary died here, in Wishing? That's why he's after the watch, isn't it?" said Alice.

"Yes, but you're getting ahead of the story."

Alice took a deep breath. "How did it happen?" she asked.

"A car crash. Like with Jessica." Ms. Weatherall folded her hands in her lap. "Brandon had been driving all night, and the bridge had been damaged earlier, by a fight between a sorcerer and the police." Ms. Weatherall took a deep breath through her nose. "They hadn't roped it off. Hadn't put up any signs." Despite composing herself earlier, Ms. Weatherall's voice broke. 

Lightning flashed outside. 

"The crash itself wasn't so bad. Brandon had been driving slowly, and the bridge wasn't high. But it went over a stream. Zachary drowned in twelve inches of water."

Alice bit her lip. She was starting to pity Walker-Rose. Which was dangerous, because he'd most likely try to kill her as soon as he found out she had the watch.

"Brandon blamed Edward for the crash, for not putting up signs. Edward wasn't the sheriff at the time, but he was the deputy in charge. It didn't help that Edward was Jefferson's cousin." She sighed. "Then Brandon found out about Lazarus Watchman and his watch."

"But resurrection is forbidden," breathed Alice. 

"Yes. So you can imagine how Edward reacted to Brandon's research."

"It didn't go well, did it?"

Ms. Weatherall shook her head. "I fear their reaction will be worse when they discover you are using the thing."

Alice's hands flew up to cover the watch, even though it was still securely hidden by her shirt. "How--?"

"Brandon was certain Alex knew where the watch was, and your bruises are almost gone. No one heals that fast without magic. I'm no doctor, but you should have been fighting to breathe at the grange, not having a shouting match with Edward." She rolled her eyes. "Don't look so scared, dear. I'm not going to tell anyone."

"Why?"

"Like I said, among other things, I would like to meet my grandson."

"Your dead grandson. Who can't be brought back to life unless _I_ die."

Ms. Weatherall's shoulders moved in an approximation of a shrug. Alice could hear her bones creak. "By my reckoning, Alex is also my grandson, whatever and whoever else he may be. Even if I am mistaken, I wouldn't want to cause your death. You're a child, and I'm not a monster."

Alice carefully put the photo album to the side and stood. Part of her still wanted to run. 

"Besides, I have reason to suspect Zachary is no longer as dead as he once was."

"What does _that_ mean?" demanded Alice. Was she suggesting Alex was somehow Zachary, despite Alex definitely being a simulacra?

"I will explain," said Ms. Weatherall. "To start with, do you know what a name needs, to count for magic?"


	14. Cages

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, so it's been a couple weeks! I did finish my editing run, but some of the plot threads in the upcoming chapters were so tangled together that I had to go all the way to the end before I could be sure they made sense! I will post the finished chapters gradually over the next week.
> 
> I should also warn you that this chapter has some police brutality in it. Like the tags indicate, I originally wrote this in 2018, so, uh, current events caught up to me, I guess? Not that this wasn't going on back then, too, but anyway...
> 
> Incidentally, if things like this happening to a fictional character incense you, please consider donating to an organization like the ACLU, Project Zero, or other activist group!
> 
> Thank you for reading!

Alex curled against the one solid wall of the cell, shivering. Every sound made him wince. His right eye had swollen shut entirely, his left had been bruised at some point and had narrowed to a slit, but even if he had two working eyes, simply too much was going on for him to keep track of. 

Deputies came in and out of the room. Sheriff Sullivan yelled into a phone in his office. On occasion people threw things at him and shouted at him. 

One detective may have attempted to interrogate him, but he had been having something of a breakdown at the time-- honestly, he was still having a breakdown, only less intensely-- and hadn't responded beyond bursting into tears. 

He had good reason to be upset. Nothing else in his admittedly short life experience came close to equaling the pain and misery he now was feeling. Walker-Rose, or more accurately, his lookalike simulacra, had beaten him up, and now he was in _jail,_ and he didn't know why. What did he _do?_ What did they _think_ he did?

Why did they feel the need to use such heavy chains to hold him to the wall? The metal of the links was thicker than two of his fingers pressed together. The metal cuffs ankles ache.

(Arguably, the straitjacket was worse.)

Did the police want the watch, too? Walker-Rose had said that if he got it, he would restore all the people who had been turned into crows. It didn't matter, though. Alex wasn't going to tell them who had it. Alice was his friend. His first friend. 

Had the detective from before asked about the watch? He wasn't sure. None of the deputies yelling at him had mentioned it. Actually, they seemed to be under the impression that he was working for Walker-Rose. 

Which might have been true. He didn't _know._ He didn't _remember._

It would explain why Walker-Rose thought Alex had betrayed him. The thought sent another spike of anguish through his heart. He _hadn't_ betrayed him. 

The door of Sheriff Sullivan's office slammed open, making Alex jump. He knocked into the wall, jostling his probably-broken arm and the deeper pains lying along his ribs. 

"I am not 'handing him over!'" roared Sheriff Sullivan, phone still in his hand, his hat askew. "He's _my_ prisoner! _My_ lead on Walker-Rose, who's been a plague on this town for a decade while you and your people do nothing!" There was a long, tense pause as the whole room fell to silence. "Take someone else's eyes, Ismene, you aren't coming here." 

For a moment, it looked like the sheriff would throw the phone against the wall, but instead his eyes went wide behind his sunglasses and he retreated into his office to yell some more. 

Alex was... unnerved. 

He recognized that name, from the last phone call of the sheriff's he had overheard. He didn't like the sound of it then, and he didn't like the sound of it now. Especially given the comments about eyes. 

A few minutes later, Sheriff Sullivan reemerged from his office, sans phone, and strode across the room to the holding cell, stopping a few feet beyond the bars. 

Alex swallowed. The sheriff hadn't hit him or thrown anything at him-- yet-- but he hadn't stopped the others from doing so. 

"You act clever, for a simulacra," said the sheriff, voice icy. "How did he disguise your eyes?"

"What?" croaked Alex. "I'm not-- What?"

The sheriff drummed his fingers on his arm, his stance impassive.

"I don't-- I already told you everything I know about myself. I'm not a simulacra." 

The girl with glasses-- Jessica, part of his mind supplied-- had punched a door clear off its hinges and shrugged off a bullet wound with no issue. Alex was was obviously having more trouble with far less than that.

(His muscles were still quivering from the taser.) 

On the other hand... _red_ seemed like a far more reasonable color for his eyes than _blue._

What was wrong with him?

"You're bleeding rose petals," said the sheriff, managing to point at the ground with his chin. "Want to try again?"

Alex looked, twisting his neck painfully to see that, yes, there were rose petals scattered on the floor of the cell. Rose petals that definitely hadn't been there when he first was thrown in. 

This was...

A relief, actually. 

He knew where he came from. Mostly.

"You can answer now," said the sheriff, "or you can wait for Oroitz to come and pick through whatever passes for your mind. She won't be gentle."

"But I don't remember anything! I have amnesia!"

"Uh, boss?" said one of the deputies. "If Oroitz is coming, maybe we should clean him up? Or call a Jason? You know how Oroitz is about blood. If Verity's coming, not one of the other ones. I _assume_ it's Verity."

"The Jasons have enough to worry about without inflicting this thing on them."

"I think he really needs a doct--"

"No."

The sheriff's lip had a nasty curl to it, like he was looking at something he had stepped in. Alex tried to hunch down, make himself smaller, but his arm and ribs screamed at him when he tried. 

"But you do have a point about Oroitz's phobia. You two," he pointed at a pair of deputies, "can clean it up. Don't forget the petals. Make sure both of you keep an eye on it. I don't want it mysteriously missing or destroyed."

Alex looked at the petals again. His blood, on the floor. 

"And find a blindfold and earplugs. We've never been able to figure out if Walker-Rose can see through these things."

One of the deputies shuddered. "Like we need another Ismene Alvis," he muttered. 

"Please," exclaimed Alex, "don't, I-- He can't." If Brandon Adrian Grant Walker-Rose could use his senses, then the man would know Alex hadn't betrayed him, and where the watch was. 

He couldn't _say_ that to the sheriff. 

"Please," he tried again.

The sheriff didn't respond. Instead, he walked away, talking to people Alex couldn't see. Two other figures walked out in front of the cell.

In anticipation, he curled in as tightly as the straitjacket and other bonds would allow. The edges of his vision sparkled as he inadvertently strained his injuries. The deputies outside the cell were bickering with each other, but Alex couldn't hear them over the rush of blood in his ears. 

They were going to blindfold him. And put _earplugs_ in his _ears._ Which, technically, was what earplugs were for, but Alex didn't want them. He needed to be able so see and hear, to be able to tell what was coming for him, even if he couldn't do anything about it. 

One of the deputies dumped a bucket of cold water on him, leaving him gasping. The other dabbed at him dispassionately with a moist towelette. 

"I'm getting another bucket," grumbled the deputy. 

"A mop, too, while you're at it," said the other deputy. 

Alex did not want to be doused again. He shook his head vigorously, beyond words. The deputy with the towelettes simply grabs his chin, effectively immobilizing him. 

The first deputy came back and threw water on him again. This time, Alex flinched back from the water hard enough to slip free of the second deputy's hand and bang his head on the wall. 

Ow. Big ow. Big, dizzy, ow. 

He tipped sideways, falling into the puddle on the floor. 

Water-- Cold water. It fluttered and lapped against the bloody rim of his nostril. He was-- Was he drowning? Here? Now? In less than an inch of water?

(Not again.)

The deputies picked him up and set him against the wall again. He shook so badly they had to hold him there as they wrapped a length of cloth around his head. It pressed painfully against his bruised eyes, but he didn't, couldn't, react until they shoved something into his ear. _Deeply_ into his ear. 

Alex yelped. 

"Sorry," muttered a deputy. "We really should call Jason..." 

They put the plug in his other ear, then they fitted something over his head. Earmuffs?

He waited a few minutes, nerves taught as piano wire. Was he alone? He didn't know. He couldn't know. He couldn't so much as make out the threads of the fabric over his eyes, and the only sound he could make out was his own heartbeat. After another few minutes, he tried to surreptitiously dislodge the earmuffs by scraping them off along the cell wall. 

He almost didn't notice the faint vibrations of the floor beneath him. He froze. Someone was near him. The air stirred, and he pushed himself away. A fist buried itself in his stomach. He gagged and hiccuped. Something else hit him, he wasn't sure what it was this time, and he retreated into a fetal position. A hand seized him by the collar, and dragged him up, halfway off the floor.One side of the earmuffs pulled off, and rough fingers dislodged the earplug. 

"This," came a harsh whisper, "is for my brother, you-"

"What are you _doing?"_

Alex was dropped unceremoniously, and he shrieked in pain. There were sounds of a scuffle. Someone shouted, "Lock him up!" There were scrapes and bangs, and a shouted argument, but finally, the noise died down, and Alex was left trying to piece together what had happened. 

He adjusted himself carefully, and froze when his leg came into contact with something metallic. What was it? He shifted again, now detecting a sharp edge. Was that a knife? Had he narrowly survived a murder attempt?

More importantly, could he use the knife? If he could get the proper angle, could he cut himself out of the straitjacket? Or at least damage it? He probably couldn't _hide_ the knife, not without hands and eyes. 

He rotated himself. This would be difficult to do without hurting himself more. He shifted sideways, sideways, sideways...

Footsteps and voices drew back into Alex's range of hearing, and he quickly reversed himself again, pulling himself defensively against the wall. 

"... Next time, Casey, I want you to follow my instructions," said Sheriff Sullivan. "Isn't your name supposed to mean 'vigilant?'"

"I didn't think he'd try to _kill_ him, sir. I only went out for a couple of minutes..."

"To call the clinic," stated the sheriff flatly. "Which I told you not to do."

Silence. Then, "I joined to stop criminals, not torture people we already have in custody."

"He's not--" the sheriff broke off, sighing. "Go get the knife and go home."

"Sir--"

"I can't have you here if you aren't going to be rational. Consider yourself suspended."

"Yes, sir."

The door to Alex's cell creaked open. He tensed, not sure what to expect.

"I'm just getting the knife, kid." Fingers brushed the side of Alex's face, readjusting the earmuffs. "Jason's on his way."

The man didn't put the earmuffs back on all the way.

"You have him blindfolded?" asked a feminine voice. "And what are the earmuffs for? And the towel? It's not like it's cold in here."

"In case Walker-Rose can see through his eyes, or hear through his ears," explained the sheriff, shortly. 

"Hm. We don't have any evidence of Walker-Rose possessing that power."

"We don't have any evidence of him _not_ being able to do it. And he learns things too quickly."

"Whatever. They need to come off, anyway. My magic needs eye contact."

The cell door creaked open. Four sets of footsteps approached Alex, one much lighter than the others. The blindfold and earmuffs were roughly removed, and Alex squinted against the sudden light. The remaining earplug was yanked out a moment later. 

Shapes moved in his blurry vision. The woman crouched down in front of him.

"Jesus Ch-- Did anyone call the clinic?" said the woman. "Someone needs to look at this kid's eye."

"We called the clinic," said the sheriff. "On with it, please."

Alex's sight was beginning to adjust, so he caught the look the young woman shot up at the sheriff. She turned her gaze to Alex's one good eye.

"My name is Verity Oroitz. I read minds." 

She was younger than Alex first thought, only in her twenties. Her hair was short and curly, her skin was dark, contrasting against her pale beige suede jacket.

"That's... nice?" said Alex.

"This will feel a little weird."

Verity then treated Alex to the single most awful sensation he'd ever experienced. Considering the kind of day he'd been having, that was saying a lot. It was like his brain was a filing cabinet, and someone was riffling through it, occasionally backtracking. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to keep her out.

"Crap," said Verity.

"What?" asked the sheriff, voice flat.

The woman stood and whirled to face Sheriff Sullivan. "What? _What?_ You told me you had a simulacra for me to read! This is a child, you utter ba-- biscuit! A child who _you_ beat up! What's wrong with you?"

"It bleeds rose petals."

"Oh, as if there aren't half a dozen different explanations for that. Don't you have a person in here who bleeds _blue_?"

"You've never read a simulacra before," said Sheriff Sullivan.

"No, but I know what a scared kid looks like, and unless Walker-Rose has a truly incredible memory forger, _he,_ " she pointed at Alex, "is perfectly genuine. And also needs a doctor."

Alex looked up nervously at the sheriff. He didn't seem inclined to agree. "We have a Jason on the way. How much did you get from him? What's his connection to Walker-Rose? Is he some kind of new simulacra?"

Verity shrugged. "I mean, maybe? I've only done a surface reading. But he's _real._ He has thoughts and feelings. I'd need to take a second look. Or a third."

"Do it, then."

"He's got rights."

The sheriff laughed, short and harsh. "In this town? With people turning people into birds? It isn't as if we can send anyone out for a trial. You know that. More importantly, so does your boss."

Verity flinched. "Still."

"I want to find Walker-Rose, Oroitz. I don't have time for your ideals."

Verity flattened her lips. "Fine."

Alex had just enough time to pull in the most important of his memories and sit on them before Verity sat down in front of him again. He couldn't let her find out that Alice had the watch. They might kill her for it, so Brandon Adrian Grant Walker-Rose would undo the curse.

Not that he thought that the sorcerer undoing the curse would be a bad thing. He just didn't think Alice should have to die for it to happen. 

Verity flicked through his memories. This time she lingered on the ends. His first memories and his last. None of those were particularly pleasant. He fought her. He hid from her. He tried to force her out.

"He's fighting me," reported Verity, surprised. "He's... There's a block, on the end." She went through his earliest memories again, this time much more slowly. "There are things missing." She pressed against his first moment of wakefulness, against that moment of pain and confusion, so similar to this one. 

The moment bloomed in Alex's mind, and he couldn't tell whether or not he was now or then, here or there. He wandered through the woods, following the sound of rushing water. 

No. He couldn't go there. 

He threw himself forcefully forward. Time twisted around him. He walked up to Alice's house and leaned on the lintel as he struggled to take off his poorly fitting shoes... He walked up to-

Verity pulled back, swearing. "He looped me!" she said, angrily.

Alex slumped against the wall, drained. He doubted he would be able to defend himself if Verity decided to invade his memories again. He could hardly even follow the conversation going on above him. 

"Wait," said the sheriff. "Did you get anything about what Walker-Rose is planning?"

"Oh, lay off, Captain Ahab," said Verity, agitated. "There's such a strong block on his memory that even he doesn't remember what came before yesterday. We've all been torturing a day-old child. Congratulations."

"Who could get past the block?"

"Are you going to just ignore everything else I said?" snapped Verity, crossing her arms.

"Among other things," said the sheriff, "I am responsible for the lives and safety of all the citizens of Wishing. I am responsible for making sure the laws are followed, and that criminals are brought to justice. Criminals like Walker-Rose, whom this thing is aiding and abetting. Yes, this is unconventional, but we live in an unconventional place. Who can take care of the memory blocks?"

A pause. "I can, but he needs to be taken care of _first._ He needs medical care. And rest."

"I rather doubt that," said the sheriff. "If you can break him when he's healed, you can break him now."

"Well, I'm not going to do it."

"Ismene--"

"My family is not without influence, independent of the Wardens."

"I see," said the sheriff. "Fine." He turned on his heel and left the cell. 


	15. Rose By Any Other

"For a name to be used for magic," started Alice, hesitantly, "it has to be your legal name when you first drink the water, doesn't it?"

"Goodness, no. The Office and the Wardens would like everyone to think so, and I will be punished if anyone discovers I told you this, but, no. The name must be _given_ to you, and you must _accept_ it as your own. Those are the only requirements."

The room became much more oppressive all of a sudden. The pink walls pressed inward. "Wait... You mean it doesn't matter _when...?_ "

"No."

"But then _anyone_ could have _any_ magic, just by changing their name!" Alice threw her hands out to the sides and began to pace. 

"Not quite. The name in question cannot simply be _assumed._ It must be _bestowed_ by others. Why do you think nicknames, especially descriptive ones, are so heavily discouraged? Breathe, dear. I don't need you asphyxiating after the day you've had."

"I--" Alice used a word that would have upset her mother. "I gave Alex his name."

"Did you give him a last name as well?"

"Yes. Borrower."

"An interesting name." She frowned. "I can see why Ismene called me, earlier."

"Who?"

"Ismene Alvis, the leader of the Wardens. Be careful not to meet her eyes."

Wow. That wasn't ominous at all. "Why?"

"Because if you do, she can use yours. Among other things. I've never been clear on the limitations of her magic. She may or may not be able to read minds."

Alice sat back down on the footstool and held her head in her hands. "Why is this something I have to worry about now?"

"You died," said Ms. Weatherall, without a trace of sympathy, "and, more importantly, you came back."

"Why does she want Alex?"

"Most likely, she believes he can _help_ remove the Border-- Or the Wardens have some other problem they're keeping from the rest of us. It wouldn't be the first time."

Great. Cool. Wonderful. Alex may or may not have some kind of helping or borrowing magic because of Alice, and she had no idea because she didn't see what he did on the road. Awesome. 

"What about his actual name, though? Walker-Rose has to have called him something."

"If he called him anything, I suspect he called him Zachary."

Which was no more morbid than making life-sized puppets of all his dead friends and family members to begin with. 

"Zachary," continued Ms. Weatherall, "means 'God remembers.' Which we did not do."

"You think Alex made everyone forget him. And gave himself amnesia. Except for Walker-Rose, which seems like a pretty serious oversight."

"Even magic has limits and rules, and broad area effects often have exceptions. Loopholes. Missed spots." Ms. Weatherall looked away, towards her heavily curtained window.

Assuming this was true... "Zachary Walker-Rose," said Alice, testing the name. "Do you think he can make simulacra, too?"

"Magic does not always take root in all names."

"Middle name?"

Ms. Weatherall gave Alice a thin smile. "Yes. Ironic, that you called him Alex."

"Are you telling me I _guessed_ his middle name? Out of all the names in the world?"

"Nearly. They have a similar meaning."

"Then why does it even matter that I named him?" Alice tried very hard to keep her voice pleasant as she asked the question. She can't help but feel like Ms. Weatherall is leading her in circles, and her time here isn't infinite. 

"Because Brandon may have only named the simulacra Zachary, and because the connotations of his middle name are quite a bit different from the one you gave him. Brandon wanted to name him after Elaine, but there isn't a male version, so they picked something that sounded similar. Zachary's middle name was, _is,_ Eleazar."

Alice tried and failed to stop herself from pulling a face. "Okay, you lost me. What are the connotations?"

"Eleazar is a version of Lazarus."

"So... You think Alex brought himself back to life and erased everyones memory, but somehow turned himself into a simulacra on the way?" Alice lived in a town full of magic, but that was too many steps. 

"I..." Emotions Alice couldn't name flickered over Ms. Weatherall's lined face. "I cannot speculate further. I do not have enough information. Which leaves us with the questions you really came to ask."

"Um," said Alice. 

"Please. Your parents wouldn't have sent you over here just to ask about my family and Alex. Not when I used to work for the Office of Nomenclature. You're trying to figure out who killed you, aren't you?" She tapped her fingers on her knee, expectantly. 

Alice fidgeted, because Ms. Weatherall was completely right. She _would_ have come simply to solve the mystery of Alex, but she couldn't deny she had other concerns. 

"Yes," she said. "What kind of name could let someone strangle me from a distance?"

Something in Ms. Weatherall posture relaxed slightly. "Unfortunately, there is only one name that directly references strangulation.

"And you just happen to know it off the top of your head."

"I believe in proper preparation. You hardly made your dilemma at the grange a secret."

"I guess not. What's the name?"

"Angerona. From either the Latin _angor,_ which means strangulation or anguish, or from _angustus,_ which means constricted. However, Angerona is banned by the Office of Nomenclature, for obvious reasons. And because it is the name of a goddess of _death._ " Ms. Weatherall made a face. 

"Yeah..." said Alice. "No one has a name like that. What other options are there?"

"Many," said Ms. Weatherall. "Too many. Metaphor. Homophones. A serial-killer namesake. Especially as the magic may not be _strangulation_ at all, but simply something that can cause it."

"So, you can't help."

"Not, perhaps, in the way you want me to. But your enemy isn't a magic. Isn't a _name._ Your enemy is a human serial killer."

"Well, yeah," said Alice, shrugging.

"Humans have motives."

"Yes...?" Where was she going with this? "But up until I got this," she tapped the watch, "there was no reason to kill me."

To Alice's surprise, Ms. Weatherall pulled a bundle of newspaper out from under her seat cushion. "It may or may not surprise you to learn I read the obituaries. Since my son started his... search... most of my friends have avoided me. Bingo nights and the obituary page are the only places I see them any more."

"Okay. That's, um... morbid. How does that relate to the serial killer motive problem?"

"I noticed a pattern in the last several weeks. A pattern of five. Six, if you count Misty Motley, whose obituary has not yet been posted, seven if you count yourself. I have circled them." She handed the newspapers to Alice. "All of them dead before their time, and with names that followed a theme, a theme that disturbed me greatly, considering what I currently go by."

Alice unfurled the papers, taking note of the circled names. _Katrina Amanda Taranis, Neil Danilo Glaw, Altan Bulut, Angela Nefeli Dimitriou, James Dylan Fogg._ Add to the list Misty Marie Motley, Alice Lan Linh, and Glenys Clara Weatherall...

"I don't get it," said Alice, not seeing a pattern. 

"I suppose my time in the Office has skewed my sense of what is obvious. Taranis means storm. Neil, Bulut, and Nefeli mean cloud. Misty, Fog, and Weatherall... Well, the association becomes obvious."

"Not especially," said Alice, even more confused. "My name doesn't have anything to do with weather or clouds. 'Alice' means 'noble kind,' and 'Linh' means spirit."

A blink. Confusion was apparently contagious. "Your middle name means 'mist' in Chinese."

"My grandparents were from Vietnam. 'Lan' means orchid."

"Ah. Then we know something else about our murderer."

"What?"

"They use the same search engine and name books I do. Or they think you're Chinese."

Alice scowled. That was an awful lot of build-up, and it was annoying that Ms. Weatherall was basing this on something she had Googled.

Wait. Alice was focusing on the wrong part. "They're targeting people with weather-related names. Maybe. It could be a weird coincidence. They-- The victims could have something else in common, right?"

"Possibly. I'm not a detective. I'm barely a linguist. Before I worked in the Office, I taught high school French."

"Wait, what? You taught French?"

"Yes."

"Do you think you would mind if I asked you for homework help now and again? Wait, no never mind, way off topic, sorry."

"Not tonight," said Ms. Weatherall. She looked towards the window again. "Not soon. You should go home. Take a walk out of your body. Check up on your friend. It is possible..." Ms. Weatherall grimaced. "I don't want to get your hopes up. The interactions of powers can be very strange."

Alice licked her lips. "Right," she said. "Okay. Are you going to be okay? If the killer comes after you..."

"I have police outside the house. Not the most competent of them, but still. I'll be fine. Besides, they seem to be after you, right now."

That didn't exactly soothe Alice's nerves. In fact, it did the opposite. "Good to know. Just... First, can you think of a reason someone would want to kill people who could have weather powers?"

"There is a reason _I_ might want to," said Ms. Weatherall. Alice gave the older woman a look. This wasn't the time for jokes. "I haven't seen the sun in ten years, or the stars. That makes some people... unhappy."

Alice groaned. This hadn't been nearly as helpful as she had hoped. "Can I borrow your phone? I have to call home so Mom and Dad can distract the police again."

"Of course," said Ms. Weatherall. "Oh, and-- your homework. Wit until after I'm no longer under house arrest, will you?"

"Okay," said Alice. "Thanks. Where can I--?"

Ms. Weatherall pointed at a wall phone with her cane. 

"Oh. Okay," Alice said. "Thanks."


	16. Lock and Key

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter features more people being terrible to Alex.
> 
> Thank you for reading!

Jason sedated Alex to set his bones.

The idea of being unconscious around the police frightened Alex badly, but it was surprisingly pleasant. No one was hurting Alex here, in this organic darkness. It was more natural, more bearable, than the half-blindness he'd been suffering while awake.

But it couldn't last. Colors fell through the darkness, painting a picture. He dreamed. Part of him might have known that, might have feared a nightmare, but the rest of him just wondered why he was carving a hole in his chest with the watch key.

He dragged the key in a horizontal line over his heart again, and again, and again. He kept trying to insert the key into the hole. The hole kept healing, pushing the key out. His blood oozed out the wound in thick, viscous, sweet-smelling strands.

None of it reached the floor.

Verity's rummaging had knocked something loose inside his head.

He had to do this. He needed to do this. He wasn't enough and he had to be. This was supposed to bring him back. He could be him. He could hold him. He could be real, could be true, could be, could be, but only if the key would go in, only if the key would work. 

He didn't want to be abandoned. If _he_ found the watch, if _he_ found what _he_ was looking for, _he_ wouldn't need him anymore. _He_ wouldn't need any of them. 

It hurt. 

(So this is what the scar on his chest was from. Interesting.)

But more blood and more blood dripped from his wound, and he didn't believe what it was telling him, didn't believe the shapes it twisted into. It boiled up from the ground, spears and spires, and changed color, going pale, then pink, then white. There were doors and floors and walls. White and pale green linoleum twisted under his feet.

Was it working? Was he living or dying? Better or worse? He ignored the beeping.

The key was gone, and the red wound just a red shirt. He was lost again. His mother stood behind him, mask clear in the reflection in the window. Were his eyes blue or red?

What would be better?

Trees trembled and fell beyond the window. A thick gray ribbon of highway curled around the city and crumbled into the sea. The cars fell, sideways, into the stream. The car fell, sideways, into the stream. 

Alex did not like cars, he decided. He didn't want to look at them anymore. They were all the same.

Voices rang out. He recognized them, but the words didn't make sense. They grew louder. Too loud. Alex covered his ears as the voices warped and bent. 

The ground beneath him broke, and he pulled at the seatbelt holding him down. 

He fell. 

He woke up. 

Voices. Arguing. Jason, Verity Oroitz, the sheriff. 

His body ached around him. He was lying flat on a soft surface, no longer in a straitjacket. He shifted very slightly, trying not to draw attention to himself. The cuffs were still around his ankles.

Jason sounded utterly furious, screaming about head-injuries, irresponsibility, police violence, and the concept of privacy. Verity was generally backing Jason up. The sheriff was threatening. 

It occurred to Alex that he was witnessing an argument between three of the most powerful factions in Wishing. The overt police, the secret police, and the only group with the power to keep the town healthy. 

The sheriff was winning. 

"Look," said Jason, in a tone of forced calm. "Do you know how many bones I just set?"

"Three," said the sheriff, after a moment of contemplation. 

"Right. Three. Do you know how many of his bones you and your goons broke? Because I don't! He _needs_ an x-ray. He _needs_ to go to the clinic, where we can give him proper care."

Hesitantly, Alex reached out with his magic, and touched Jason's. The relief was palpable and instant. The soreness in his bruises faded.

"He's not going anywhere until you tell me what Walker-Rose is planning. And neither are _you_."

"He might not even know," said Verity. "I can't read him while he's unconscious, anyway."

"Good thing he isn't unconscious anymore."

Alex jerked upward, pulling himself away from the voices. His eyes snapped open. Both of them. Under other circumstances, he would have been happy to discover vision had returned to his right eye, although it was horribly unclear. As it was, he was more concerned with his surroundings. 

He was still in the cell, but someone had brought in a cot for him to lay on. The chain was still attached firmly to the wall. Beyond the sheriff, Jason, and Verity, a half-dozen officers stood outside the cell, watching. Alex would not be escaping.

"Don't move!" said Jason, anxiously. "You're still healing."

"Find out what Walker-Rose is planning," said the sheriff, "and how _he,_ " the sheriff jerked his head at Alex, "is connected."

Jason scowled at the sheriff. "Aren't you supposed to uphold the law? What happened to the second amendment?"

A beat of silence.

Then Verity said, "The right to keep and bear arms?"

"What? No." Another pause. "The fifth amendment. This has to be against the fifth amendment. Unreasonable search and seizures."

"You mean the right not to be compelled to testify against yourself?"

"Yeah that one, too."

"Um, Jason-" started Verity.

"I'm a doctor, not a legal expert!" A pause. "Okay, so, I'm not technically a doctor, either! Still, this is wrong!"

"The founding fathers didn't anticipate _magic._ In any case, those laws are meant for people."

"As far as I'm concerned," said Jason, "he _is_ a person. My magic doesn't work on _things_. I should know, I've tried to use it on my _car_ often enough. So take a flying leap. I'm not going to let you do this."

The sheriff gazed at Jason, unimpressed. "Either this happens, or I kick you out, and we can see how he does without your magic to heal him." He glanced at Alex, who cringed. 

Alex thought he would survive that, physically, but he had no desire to be left alone here. 

(Was that a flicker of guilt crossing the sheriff's features?)

The sheriff looked back at Jason and Verity. "If you read him, and he's really not planning something with Walker-Rose, then, and _only_ then, I'll let you take him to the clinic. Under guard. Understood?"

Noises of disagreement came from the officers outside the cell. The sheriff glared at them. "Am I in charge here, or not?"

"Fine," said Verity, "I'll do it."

Alex shook his head. "Please, you don't have to. Please, don't. I don't-- I really don't--" 

Whatever Verity had done to him before, he could only imagine it would be worse this time. He covered his face with his hands.

If she needed to be able to see his eyes to do her magic, maybe this would stop her. 

He didn't want her in his head. 

"It won't hurt," assured Verity. One of her hands touched his. "Come on, kid." She wrapped her hands around his wrists, and pulled. "I don't want to have to do this through skin contact, it's a pain. Literally. For both of us."

"Hurry up, Oroitz. Don't coddle it."

Verity huffed. "Fine." She adjusted her grip so that her fingers pressed against the palms of Alex's hands. 

They burned. Alex tried to pull away. His memories flashed by across his skin. One caught on Verity's fingers-- The dream. 

Alex fell, out of his skin. He couldn't feel Verity's hands anymore, where she touched him still burned. 

He hit the ground sideways, and all his breath left his lungs in a pained _whoosh._ Grass sprouted under his fingertips as he moved his hand. 

"Sorry about this, but I really need to talk to you."

Alex started, trying to scramble to his feet. His surroundings were empty and gray, except for a rough patch of red grass were he'd been laying. It seemed to grow up from nothing, its roots dangling, a void beneath them. 

A few meters in front of him floated (stood?) Verity Oroitz.

When he didn't respond Verity made a face. "Okay. Let's start over. Hi, I'm Verity Philomena Oroitz. I read minds, and, sometimes, travel through them." She paused. "I'm not actually part of the sheriff's department. I mean, they're paying me for this, but I'm a Well Warden."

"So what?" demanded Alex, on the verge of tears. "You-- You're still-- You're still doing this! Why won't you leave me alone? I never did anything to any of you. I've never done anything to anyone."

Verity raised a hand, and tipped it from side to side. "That's up for debate, actually. But that's not what I'm here to talk about."

"You-- You're not here to _talk_ about anything," said Alex. "You want to pick apart my brain!"

"Well... Being able to see your true past would be useful. For both of us. I mean, you're curious too, right? But, I'm here to make you an offer. Agreeing with Sullivan was sort of..." She waved a hand in the air. "A smokescreen."

Alex didn't believe her. He clenched his fists. 

"What kind of offer?"

Verity shrugged. "My boss thinks your name is interesting. And what you did with your friend? Luke Thomas? Also interesting."

"So?" Her mention of Luke gave Alex an idea.

"So, she wants to recruit you."

That didn't make any sense. "To guard the Well?"

"We do more than guard the Well," said Verity. She put her hands in her pockets. "We break curses, too. A person's magic can linger on, even after they're dead. Like the Border. Or all those little nasty ones you almost ran into in the school. But, yeah. Guarding the Well, too, I guess."

"I'm not exactly in a position to _accept._ I'm sort of busy being in jail."

"You're not really in _jail,_ " said Verity. "You're in a holding cell in the Sheriff's Office-- The building, not the organization. Although, I guess the organization and the building sort of go together? Anyway, Wishing doesn't really _have_ a jail. We're too small."

Alex didn't believe _that_ either. In books, secret police always had somewhere to disappear people to-- Unless they just killed people, which was an option Alex wasn't interested in exploring. 

Verity snorted and rolled her eyes. "We're not the 'secret police.' To begin with, we're not _secret._ Well, not in Wishing. No one else knows about us, but everyone in Wishing _does._ Just about, anyway."

"How--"

"We are in your head right now. I am literally reading your mind as we speak. Moving on, accept our offer, and we'll make sure you get out of here."

"Out of my mind?"

"Out of jail."

"I thought you said--"

"Don't get clever with me, kid. Join us, and we'll take care of you. We can set you up with a whole life. Loads of families would adopt if it didn't mean trapping someone here. You can go to school, hang out with your friend, the works."

 _Way_ too good to be true. 

He reached for Verity's magic and _pulled._

The thoughts that went through Alex's head were no longer his own. 

_I feel bad. Mrs. Alvis is going to eat him up. Still, better than being left here with Sullivan. Honestly, that man's obsession... I know he lost people in the Lazarus debacle, but-- Wait a second-- That brat!_

Verity pulled back, and they were in his thoughts again, and the feedback made Alex dizzy. The landscape swirled and pulsed. 

_No. We aren't doing this._

They were still connected. Alex dove forward, focusing on Verity. She turned into a kind of tunnel, her colors and features painted on the far side of infinity, and he passed through.

Someone on the other side looked through Verity's eyes. A woman. _Not_ Verity. She had soft gray hair and soft blue eyes, but Alex didn't trust her to be soft at all

Her gaze pinned him down. He threw up a hand, as if to shield himself from her intensity. 

_Mrs. Alvis!_

Verity disappeared from his mind like smoke in a high wind. 

Good. Better, she had taken 'Mrs. Alvis' with her. 

Alex still stood in his mindscape, grass growing under his feet. As he calmed down, it turned orange, then tan, then green. He breathed in, and out. He'd _won._

How did he get out of here?

Did he _want_ to?

Well, yes, eventually, but for now... He still held the dregs of Verity's magic in his hands, and he _was_ curious. 

He turned around, slowly. At the edge of the grass stood a pair of doors. Cautiously, he approached them. Their thick metal surface was etched with roses. He put his hands on the handles, and pulled. 

Nothing. 

He pushed. 

Also nothing. Because of course it wouldn't be that easy. 

Alright. He lifted his hand to trace a tiny keyhole above one of the handles with his fingers. It almost looked like the keyhole on the watch. 

Behind him, his first meeting with Alice sprouted from the grass. He steeled himself and turned. Alice's body lay on the bank of the stream. 

Now that he knew Alice, the scene was that much more horrible. 

He closed his eyes and swallowed back bile. If Verity had seen this... But she hadn't. 

That Alex had noticed. 

He pushed the thought out of his head, and remembered the feeling of the key, its shape. When he opened his eyes again, the key rested in his palm.

Triumphant, he turned, inserted the key, and... it crumbled into ash. 

Unfair. 

Alright, so the key to the door was something different. His magic?

He was on the road, with Luke and Alice, Ashton circling overhead. Alice was choking. 

Alex grimaced. Why did so many of his memories involve Alice being hurt?

Because he only had two days worth of memory. Stupid question. 

Nothing stood out to him as a key. The door remained stubbornly closed. 

He scrubbed his head with his hands. What else could it be? Something from his past? But his past was behind the door!

Or he just didn't _have_ the key, if someone else did this to him. 

No, that felt wrong. Briefly, a school hallway wavered around him, before snapping into the grange and the interrupted bingo game. Ms. Weatherall stood in front of him. 

_Zachary,_ she had said. 

The hallway pulsed around him, rose petals on the floor, Sheriff Sullivan almost pulling a gun on him--

 _Zachary,_ he had said.

And then they forgot.

It would be nice, Alex mused, if he knew what Zachary meant. 

In the meantime, there was a key in his hand. _Zachary_. One which fit neatly into the keyhole in the door. The click as it turned echoed through Alex's whole mind. 

He took a deep breath, and began to pull the door open. The task took all of Alex's imaginary weight, and the door opened so, so slowly. Alex watched with anticipation. He--

_Bare seconds of weightlessness, then-- impact. The sound of crunching metal, and shrieking. Whiplash-- But not enough time to register it beyond shock, the pounding heat from his head overwhelming everything else. There is barely pain-- It is nothing next to confusion and shock and dizziness._

_He fumbles for his seatbelt buckle, but he can't make it work-- And is he sideways? He can't move properly. Why? He's bleeding. The glass under his cheek is cracked and damp and getting damper-- And cold. Cold. And deeper. He can't--_

_Dad--?!_

_Elsewhere. Else_ when _. It's hot, from the fire, and they're all packed together into the small room. He rests his head on her shoulder, and watches the other, the one that made them, and all seems well. But it isn't, because he won't_ look _at him, won't_ see _him, even though he tries so hard, and it should be more than enough. He wants someone else, even though they're the same, they were made to be the same, and once he gets what he wants, what will happen to all of them? It hurts to think about._

_What he's planning--_

Alex threw his weight against the door, shutting it again. Too much, too fast. There wasn't one life on the other side.

There were _two._


	17. Conviction

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for some violence and attempted murder. :)
> 
> Thank you for reading! Your comments make my day.

"He doesn't know what Walker-Rose is planning," said the black woman as Alice hovered in the Sheriff's Office, incorporeally. "If the man's planning anything and isn't off his rocker."

There was a slight quaver in her voice, and the sheriff didn't look like he believed her, either. 

"What about past plans?" he asked, leaning so far back in the office chair, Alice was surprised the back didn't snap off.

"I read him back to front," continued the woman. "He really is only a couple days old. Most likely, he's some kind of distraction, to keep you from looking for the original simulacra." She shrugged. "Or the original got damaged, and he tried to make a new one and screwed up."

"I didn't ask for you opinion," grumbled the sheriff. 

"Yeah, well, too bad." The woman pressed the back of her hand to her nose. Alice, floating over her shoulder, saw it come away with a dot of blood. 

Jason cleared his throat. "If that's all taken care of, I should bring him back to the clinic. There's only so much my magic can do. He needs actual medical care."

"No, it _isn't_ all. I said you could take him _if_ I got Walker-Rose's plans." He punctuated this statement with a sharp rap on a nearby desk. "Which I do not have."

"You can't get blood from a stone, Edward," drawled the woman. "I can't make him remember something he never knew. Like I said, he's probably here to distract you. Why don't you find out what Walker-Rose is _actually_ planning, instead of bullying some kid."

Sheriff Sullivan actually _growled._ His eyes flashed behind his glasses. "Fine. He'll be guarded."

"As long as your people don't bother me while I'm working, I don't care," said Jason with a dismissive flick of his hand. "They can help me get him in the van. Unless you can wake him up, Verity?"

The woman rolled her eyes. "I told him he was making me do it the hard way."

"I'll take that as a 'no.'"

"Pretty much, yeah."

It took a few minutes for the deputies to load Alex into Jason's car. Alice watched it drive off before starting the long flight home. 

Knowing Alex was... well, not _okay._ Anyway, it was a relief. Jason would take care of him. Jason was a good person. 

Alice had though Sheriff Sullivan was a good person before today. 

She shuddered and tried very hard not to think for the rest of her journey. 

She failed. 

At least Alex would be at the clinic by the time Alice got home, and he wasn't an _active, willing_ part of Walker-Rose's plans, though she doubted this would be the end of Alex's troubles. Seeing as he was a simulacra and all. A weird, weak simulacra but still. 

She entered her room through the roof-- she should tell her Dad about the bird's nest in the crawlspace-- and slid back into her body. She stared at the ceiling. 

On reflection, even if Alex had been actively following some plan of Walker-Rose's, she wouldn't have been too mad at him; he had brought her back to life. But... yeah.

She grabbed the back of the couch and used it to lever herself into a sitting position. Ugh. She'd gotten a nasty crick in her neck. 

"Hey, sweetie," said her mother, noticing her first. "Did you find out anything about your friend?"

Alice nodded, and rubbed her neck. "They're bringing him to the clinic," she said. "They got someone named Verity to look at him, and she said he's a person, and he really _doesn't_ remember anything." She very carefully, and courteously, did not say 'I told you so.' 

"Verity? Verity Oroitz?" asked her mother, surprised. 

"I mean, I didn't hear her last name," said Alice.

Her father hummed. "What did she look like?"

"Black? Short hair?" She waved her hand just over her head as she stood and joined her parents at the kitchen table.

"That does sound like Verity Oroitz," said her mother. "She's supposed to be quite good at what she does."

On the table, there were dozens of papers, including Luke's notes on who had what power at school. Alice glanced at the clock. It was almost noon. They'd been at this for hours. 

(Alex had been in a cell all night.)

"So, anyone new?" she asked, referencing their list of suspects. Her parents, understandably, were much more concerned about Alice's murder than Alex's situation. She had the impression that they were letting her keep track of Alex because they thought she was in denial, or traumatized, or something like that. 

Well. She might be.

Her mother made a face. "I'm not sure..." she started, before trailing off. She looked at Alice's father, who pushed the list across the table at Alice.

Alice's eyes quickly found the bottom and narrowed.

"No," said Alice, stubbornly. "I don't think so."

"Flora's your friend," said Alice's mother, "but she _does_ have a reason to want people with weather powers gone."

"Yeah, because of _her_ power. Photosynthesis. Which kinda precludes her from being able to strangle people from a distance. Plus, _Anger_ does not mean _strangle._ "

(No matter how similar it was to the word _angor._ )

"Middle names can add to meanings and magics," said Alice's father.

"Her middle name is Grace," said Alice, flatly.

"We aren't saying she did it, but she could still be connected," said Alice's mother. "Maybe someone close to her..." Alice's mother trailed off, then tried another tack. "Alice, did you tell anyone where you were going after school?"

"Other than Luke, Ashton, and Alex?" She shook her head. "We didn't decide to go to the grange until, like, the last minute, otherwise we would have asked for a ride." She leaned back, crossing her arms. "What, are you trying to figure out who knew I was alive? Other than, the teachers, the whole student body, all the police, who are total loons, Dr. Jason, anyone who drove by us on the road, the bus driver, etcetera, etcetera?"

"No, just who knew that you would be on the road to the grange. Are you sure you didn't tell anyone? The bus driver? Your friends in the literature club?"

"No," groaned Alice. "I didn't get the chance to ask Mrs. Rice to give us a ride, and we ran all the way-- Wait. I did ask Flora's mom for a ride first, but she said Flora had an appointment with her... something. Some kind of doctor. Flora was upset about it. She didn't want to go. I don't think Flora's mom would have skipped that to go chase after me. Our families have been friends forever, anyway."

"Most people who are murdered are killed by friends or acquaintances," said Alice's dad, crossing his arms. 

"Not when it's a serial killer," argued Alice, pouting. "Not when they're trying to kill everyone with weather names, which I don't even have."

"Yes, but a person would have to be close to us to know your middle name, or have been part of the Office of Nomenclature when you were born, like Ms. Weatherall," said Alice's mom.

Alice scoffed. "Any teacher or administrator at the school could get my middle name. It's in the school records, and on every report card. Heck, so could the mailman. Do you think that the _mailman_ killed me?"

"No, sweetie, we--" The doorbell rang. Everyone turned.

"Go to your room, Alice," said her father, standing. "I'll see who it is." Alice's mother, meanwhile, started to gather up the papers from the table. 

Alice went to her room and closed the door, even pushing her dresser in front of it for safety, but she wanted to see what was going on. This involved her directly, after all. So she laid down on her bed, making sure that she was in a comfortable position, one that wouldn't give her awful cramps down the line. She left her body, and walked out into the hall.

Her father was peering out the window with a frown on his face. "I suppose we can't ignore her," he said. 

"It'll be fine," said Alice's mother, putting the papers in the kitchen junk drawer. "Like Alice said, we've been friends with her for years. She was here for Thanksgiving, for goodness' sake."

"I know, Taylor. This is just bad timing. Incredibly bad timing." He stepped away from the window, grimacing. Then he shook his head, plastered on a pleasant expression, and opened the door. "Eva!" he said, his voice falsely bright. "I'm sorry I didn't come right away, I was on the other side of the house."

"That-- Alright," said Ms. Anger, wringing her hands. "I was, I was wondering if Alice was here."

"No, she's at school," lied Alice's father. Oh, gosh, he was bad at lying. Alice almost smacked herself. No way would Ms. Anger believe that. Hopefully this wouldn't damage their 'family friend' status.

"Please. I-- I need to talk to her. It's about Flora."

Alice zoomed back to her room, dove back into her body, and would have jumped off the bed and through the door in the same movement if it weren't for the dresser blocking the way. She shoved the offending piece of furniture out of the way, and _then_ jumped through the door. 

"What about Flora?" she demanded. 

Ms. Anger stared at Alice with wide eyes. "You _are_ here," she mumbled. "Do you know how shocked I was, when I saw you yesterday?"

"What about Flora?" asked Alice again, not seeing how this was relevant. "Is she hurt? Is she sick again?"

"She's sick," said Ms. Anger. "She's always sick."

"Eva," said Alice's father, interposing himself between Ms. Anger and Alice. "Are you feeling alright? Maybe we should take you to the clinic."

"How are you so lucky, when Flora... When Flora..." she trailed off, and shook her head. "Not any more."

"What?" said Alice, utterly confused.

"Alice," said her father, "go to the bathroom. Lock the door. Don't--"

A loud knock on the door interrupted him. His head swiveled in that direction. 

"Alice, go. You, too, Taylor." The knocking grew more insistent. 

"But--" said Alice. 

"Not now, sweetheart," said her mother, grabbing her arm and pulling her down the hallway. Her words were almost inaudible over the insistent, persistent, banging on the door. In a spray of wood chips and plaster, the door was knocked off its hinges. It slammed into Alice's father, pinning him to the floor and knocking him out cold.

The girl with glasses stood in the doorway, her simulacra-red eyes flashing. She walked in, her steps precise, almost dainty, despite the large boots she wore. She avoided stepping on the door, and, by extension, Alice's unconscious father. 

Then she tripped. The legs of her pants had been sewn together mid-stride. "The back!" hissed Alice's mother, now pushing her down the hall. 

Alice ran. If she could make it out the back door, she could hide in the woods that backed their property or even get to Ms. Weatherall's. She had to remind herself that Walker-Rose had never been known to kill people. Her parents would be alright. They would probably be turned into crows, which was less than ideal, but survivable.

She stumbled as her airway constricted and closed. No. Not again. Not again, not again, not _again--_

The feeling cut off, and Alice stumbled back to her feet, propelling herself forward and around the bend in the hall. 

Either the simulacra had spontaneously gained magic, not impossible, considering Alex, or Ms. Anger, her best friend's mother, had tried to kill her. Had tried to strangle her to death. Had previously _succeeded_ in killing her.

She threw open the back door and took a startled step backwards. Then several more in quick succession as the tallest simulacra strode forwards and ducked into the house. 

Well. She was toast.

Walker-Rose wasn't known to kill people, but he wanted the watch. Alice supposed that she shouldn't complain. She had been given almost two whole extra days, a sort of grace period, and hanging out as a ghost wouldn't be too bad. 

The big simulacra reached towards her and Alice stepped out of her body, but didn't leave. She didn't want to feel herself die, but she wanted to witness the her final moments. Someone should see them, other than her killer. Not like last time. 

To her surprise, however, the simulacra did not take the watch but simply picked her up and threw her over his shoulder. He stomped through the house, back to the front entry and the living room. 

The sorcerer sat in her father's recliner, looking relaxed and drinking a glass of fruit juice. Alice's father lay on the couch with the woman in white (who was actually wearing a butterfly-patterned turtleneck today) tending to him. Alice's mother and Ms. Anger leaned against the wall, tied with rope and blindfolded with pieces of black tarp.

Near the sorcerer's feet, the girl with glasses took scissors to the clothing in her lap. She wore only her underwear. The other simulacra stood behind the sorcerer, attending him like a king in his court. 

Alice clenched her fists. Was he going to do it here, in front of her parents?

"Lay her down here, Richard," Walker-Rose ordered. "Gently."

She wanted to scream at him, shout at him, hit him, punish him in some small way for what he was about to do, but she couldn't affect anything while in astral form and she didn't want to miss anything, so she stayed stoic, tears running down her face.

"Jessica," he said, tipping his head towards his youngest-looking simulacra (bar, apparently, Alex), "search her."

The simulacra jumped up, abandoning her pile of clothes. She started patting down Alice's body, as if looking for a weapon. 

"For a necklace or pocket watch, Jessica," prompted the sorcerer. 

The simulacra nodded and felt around Alice's neck, finding the chain and pulling the watch from beneath Alice's sweater. 

"Open it," he ordered, his tone oddly expectant.

Inside, the watch's three hands moved in a hypnotic rhythm, each one going at its own pace. The symbols on the faces glowed faintly. 

"There it is," said the sorcerer, leaning back. Alice looked at him sharply. His voice held no joy, no victory, only grief. 

"Please!" said Alice's mother, suddenly. She must have only just realized what the sorcerer's words meant. "Please, don't! Please don't hurt my baby!"

"What kind of a monster do you think I am?" demanded the sorcerer, harshly. "I don't... _kill_." There was an incredible amount of disgust injected into the word.

"What!" exclaimed Ms. Anger. "But you-- But you-- She has what you want!"

"Don't lump me in with the likes of you," said the sorcerer, sneering, his lip and nose both curling up, accentuating his wrinkles. "Don't compare me to the likes of you, murderer."

"Murderer? My child is sick. My child is _dying,_ and _I'm_ the murderer? The murderer is the one making my daughter sick!" The woman was hysterical. Alice had never seen her like this.

"That _is_ what they generally call it when you illegally kill people, yes."

"She's _supposed_ to be dead! She should be dead! She. Was. Dead."

"Leave Alice alone!"

The sorcerer rubbed his eyes, as if nursing a headache. "Twin," he said. "Can you gag them? Put a sock in it, or something."

The simulacra gagged the two women with a disturbing amount of enthusiasm. The sorcerer, meanwhile, continued to rub his eyes. Alice belatedly realized he was crying. 

"I'm not going to hurt her," he said. "How could I--? I know what it's like to lose people, to lose-- How could I inflict that on someone else?" He drew his breath in as a long, low sob. "I wanted to see Zachary again."

"You could," said Ms. Anger. "All you have to do is take the watch from her."

Walker-Rose snarled. "This is _your_ fault you murderous bi--" He slapped a hand over his mouth. "No, no, there are children present," he muttered through his fingers, almost unintelligible. "If it weren't for you, the girl wouldn't have needed the watch, and I would be speaking to Zachary right now. If I should kill anyone, I should kill _you._ "

Ms. Anger whimpered.

Walker-Rose turned his attention to Alice, and nudged her with his foot. "Wake up. I want to talk to you." He nudged her again. "Come on. Stop hiding. I'm not going to kill you."

Alice closed her eyes. She wanted to hide, but... Curiosity won out. 

She braced herself, and fell back into her body. As soon as she was able, she rolled away from the sorcerer, and pushed herself up into a half-sitting position. She knew better than to try to run. She'd be caught almost immediately by the simulacra.

"How did you know I had the watch?" she asked, after a long moment where she and Walker-Rose simply stared at each other.

He raised an eyebrow, and for a moment Alice thought he wouldn't answer her. He had no reason to, after all.

"I keep an eye on my mother," he said, evenly, "and I kept an eye on _you_ as well, after I saw you with my corrupted simulacra. I wanted to know why. _How_. I did not expect to find this... woman... trying to kill you."

Alice swallowed. Alice was still having trouble reconciling the woman she knew to what she knew she had done. She'd known Ms Anger for her entire life.

"The Latin word for ' _strangulation'_ is _'angor?'_ " asked the sorcerer, almost idly. "It also means _'torment,'_ apparently." He turned the whole of his attention back to Alice, and she froze. "You're lucky. You don't believe it, but it's true. Not many people get a second chance. My son won't." The sorcerer got to his feet with a painful kind of slowness. "I advise you to call the clinic for your father. I don't care what you do to the woman." He sighed, and started for the door. "Time for one last encounter with Edward and his minions."

One _last_ encounter? Did he what Alice thought? That-- Alex was still trying to talk to this man, as crazy as that was. Ms. Weatherall was trying to redeem him. Alice had to do something, she-- What could she do?

"Wait!" she said, scrambling to her feet. "I-- You-- Ms Weatherall doesn't hate you." Aargh. Why did she lead with _that_?

The sorcerer looked back at Alice. "She disowned me. Changed her name. I think that should tell you something about how she feels." He turned to leave again.

"You said you've been watching her," tried Alice. "I've talked to her. She doesn't hate you, she just doesn't like what you've done, in general, you know? She-- She told me that she wants you to be redeemed!"

The sorcerer whirled. "And how, exactly, would that happen?" he hissed. 

Alice took a step back, startled. "I--" she started.

Walker-Rose grabbed her wrist. Every line of his face was etched with fury. "You have _stolen_ my last chance." His face softened. "No, no. I shouldn't-- I shouldn't think like that, no."

"Um," said Alice. "What if-- What if Zachary-- What if he wasn't-- What if he came back? Without the watch, I mean."

The sorcerer regarded her with narrow eyes, and his simulacra drew close. "You... If you are giving me false hope here, I will make you wish that I _did_ kill people. Do you understand?"

Alice nodded frantically

"Explain." 

"Alex, the sim-- _simulacra_ ," somehow, she managed to pronounce the word correctly, "who was with me at the grange, with blue eyes, he's a real person. Verity Oroitz, the mind reader, she can read him. He has a mind. He has magic."

"So?"

"So, I mean, everyone forgot about him, didn't they? No one remembered what your fifth greater simulacra looked like. We all forgot he existed."

"Forgot he existed?" asked the sorcerer. On the surface, his voice was arch, condescending, but underneath... 

Alice had hope.

"Yeah. Even Sheriff Sullivan didn't remember until he saw the wanted poster tacked up in the diner. And 'Zachary,' it has something to do with memory, doesn't it? And his middle name--"

"Eleazar," said the sorcerer, cutting off her ramble. "We picked it because it sounded like Elaine. It means 'God has helped.'" Then he glared at Alice again. "This is relevant, how?"

"Y-yeah. It does mean that. Yeah. But it's also a version of Lazarus. So, maybe, nobody _corrupted_ your," she grimaced, "simulacra, it was Zachary, coming back, but he got scared or panicked or something and wiped everyone's memory."

The sorcerer was quiet, staring past Alice, at the wall behind her. "I hadn't considered... But Zachary died before we were in Wishing for half an hour." Anger filled his voice again. "He never even left the car."

"But he drowned, right?" Gosh, that sounded insensitive. "He, um, he probably swallowed some water before he actually, uh, died."

Silence again, and Alice's nerves were making her hands shake. She couldn't read the sorcerer's expression at all. Even her parents and Ms. Anger were quiet, listening intensely.

She decided she didn't like silence.

"And even if he _isn't_ Zachary, you still _made_ him. He's still your's. Your kid. Your son. Since I met him, he's been trying to find you. He just didn't know _how._ He didn't remember. He didn't remember anything except for _your_ name."

Walker-Rose raised a finger to his lips and looked down, past Alice, to the floor. His expression was dark, and growing darker. He started to mutter under his breath and behind his hand.

Crud. She'd made it _worse_. How had she made it _worse?_

"If he's--" said the sorcerer, more distinctly. He cut himself off. "Sullivan has him."

"Well, he's at the clinic, but, yeah." Alice wasn't sure what he'd thought would happen after he showed up and outed Alex as a simulacra. Maybe he hadn't been thought at all. 

"The clinic?"

Alice shrugged. "He was hurt."

" _Hurt--"_ choked Walker-Rose. His next words were less than a whisper. "What have I _done_? What did I _do_?"

Before Alice could come up with anything like a response, the sorcerer began to change, his body collapsing in on itself and growing darker. Left in his place, was a crow. 

He flew out the open door, the simulacra following behind, the girl in glasses still only half-dressed. They somehow reminded Alice of a group of children chasing after a butterfly. Soon, they were gone, out of sight. 

Alice let out a long, slow breath, unsure about whether or not to be relieved and rushed over to her mother. She removed the gag first, then the blindfold.

"Are you okay?" were the first words out of her mother's mouth.

"I'm fine," said Alice.

"Go call the clinic. Thuan needs help."

"Right, right," said Alice, glancing back at her father. She was having trouble with the knots. "Did she take the scissors?" she asked, looking around distractedly. 

"The _phone,_ Alice."

There was a groan from the couch, and both of them looked sharply at Alice's father. "Dad?" said Alice, rushing over. 

"I'm okay," said the man. "I'm fine." He sat up slowly. "Don't call anyone. Oof."

"Dad, you are not okay. You're still bleeding."

"No, don't call anyone." He groaned again. "No one can know she's here," he said, glaring weakly at Ms. Anger. "There are extra scissors in the kitchen," he added, as Ms. Anger began to thrash and struggle. "Go get them and untie your mother."

"What do you mean, 'no one can know she's here?'"

"Thuan, don't you dare."

"We can't involve the sheriff, Taylor."

"I'm not talking about him, Thuan."

Oh, no, this was fight time. Alice was not interested in this. Nope. She was almost as uninterested in it as she was in killing people. Even people who had tried to kill her.

"Dad, this is Flora's mom, we're talking about here. We can't--"

"That's why I'm the one who's going to do it!" shouted Thuan, listing to one side and still bleeding heavily.

Alice bit her lip, and made up her mind. "I'm calling the clinic!"


	18. Clinical Trials

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me, these past few months: When will my motivation return from the war?
> 
> The answer is today, apparently. 
> 
> Thank you to everyone who sent me encouraging messages! I love you guys so much!!!

Alice leaned back in the waiting room chair. She'd been at the clinic a lot in the past few days. Well. Twice.

She glanced sideways at the deputy leaning against the door into the back of the clinic. She'd been trying not to look at him, even though _he_ hadn't been returning the favor. While spying astrally, Alice had discovered other deputies in the building.

The clinic hadn't liked all the guards either, apparently, because when they'd sent the ambulance to the house, and the medics had seen Ms. Anger tied up on the floor, and the general state of the house, they _hadn't_ called the sheriff's office, but the Well Wardens. 

Which was reasonable, even if one discounted how peeved the clinic was at the sheriff. The Wardens took care of criminals, sorcerers, the sheriff couldn't handle. 

But, usually, if the criminal was already subdued, the sheriff was at least called, so he could give the criminal over to the Wardens and preserve a veneer of legitimacy for all parties.

Politics were scary. 

Alice didn't know if the Wardens had actually taken Ms. Anger. Only one Warden had been there when the Linh's had left. 

Gosh, what would happen to Flora?

Alice closed her eyes.

Her mother shook her hand. "Don't," she said. 

"I've got to," said Alice.

"We shouldn't antagonize the sheriff's office. We don't want them looking at us."

Alice shifted. She was right. If the sheriff's department found out about the watch, they'd take it from her, and she'd die. The City Council was... _stern_ about the prohibition on resurrection magic. Her dad wasn't hurt that badly, anyway. He needed some stitches, and to get his nose set. That was it. Checking up on him wasn't worth drawing attention.

But Alex was here, and she wanted to see him.

She closed her eyes. 

Alex wondered if Jason felt him feeding his magic. Jason didn't act like it. But then, Jason wasn't acting like much of anything except angry at the deputy standing outside the door, and the sheriff's office in general. 

He had decided, when he'd woken up, that the best course of action would be to lie quietly and pretend to still be asleep. If they didn't know he was awake, he would have at least that small advantage. 

He was going to escape. He had to escape. 

Alex wasn't able to remember very much from before. He'd only been able to open the door one more time. Everything behind it, everything he remembered, was too much, too sudden. He knew he'd only touched a fraction of what was there. Even so, he'd remembered enough. He knew what he had to do now, and how. 

And he couldn't do it here. 

Just... He wasn't entirely sure _how_ to escape. Especially since he was handcuffed to the railing of the cot he was lying on. That was a significant obstacle, possibly even more significant than the deputies guarding him, or Jason's possible reaction.

People forgot, if Zachary wanted them to. Metal, on the other hand, wasn't particularly susceptible to memory wipes.

The door squeaked open. "Jason, we've got an emergency in room four. Serious head injury."

Jason hissed. "I'll be right there." 

Alex heard quick footsteps and the door shut. Jason's magic slipped out of his reach.

He opened his eyes. He _was_ alone.

He gave the handcuffs an experimental tug, then repeated the action on the railing itself. Both seemed depressingly solid. He leaned over the railing. It was fixed to the bottom of the bed with screws. Could he sheer them off if he hit hard enough? Probably not. The screws looked robust. Maybe he could unscrew them, if he found something to... 

Was that a screwdriver?

A screwdriver, sitting in the open next to the sink? A screwdriver in just the right size?

Clearly, Jason was _way_ cooler than Alex had first thought and much more sanguine about the possibility of his escape.

He started unscrewing. He only had to undo two of the screws to slip the other end of the handcuffs off, the top of one of the in-between vertical bars, and the screw anchoring the main bar to the cot. 

He was free!

Sorta. He still had to get out of the clinic without the deputies noticing.

The room had a window. A small, high, frosted window. He got up on the counter and pushed it open, as far as it would go, which turned out to be two inches. 

Alex was skinny. He wasn't _that_ skinny. 

He could break the window. The unscrewed bar from the bed would do the trick. But the noise would alert anyone nearby, and he wasn't confident in his speed when it came to wriggling through broken glass.

The other option was to find his way out through the clinic.

He considered the door and the window, and sighed. He wasn't even sure he'd fit through the window. Comparing its width to that of his shoulders was not promising. 

Through the clinic it was.

He slid up to the door, listened, and, when he didn't hear anything, eased it open, and peeked outside. Since his luck was terrible, a deputy was staring right at him as he did this. The deputy inhaled, about to yell.

 _Zachary_ reached out and hid the memory of why the police were at the clinic. 

The deputy hissed, and put his hand to his head before sliding down the wall. Alex ran past, head pounding. He couldn't remember what he had just hidden, but his worldview was swinging wildly. 

He didn't have time to contemplate further. Whatever had brought the police to Wishing Clinic was secondary to Alex's need to escape them. 

Wait. 

_He_ was the reason they were at the clinic. Well, he'd have to hope it would take the deputies longer to reason that out and retrieve the memory. In the meantime, he needed to find an exit. 

Happily, the exits were labeled with large, illuminated signs. 

He crashed into the door, and an alarm immediately started going off deeper in the building. He almost had a heart attack and 'escaped' life itself, but managed to remember that, right, fire alarms were a thing.

"Hey, you! Stop!"

Alex turned to see a deputy chasing after him and, without giving the action a second thought, threw the screwdriver at him. The heavy handle end hit the man over the eye. He fell over. Alex kept running.

Wishing was not, to the best of Alex's understanding, a big town. However, it did have a comparatively 'dense' area. The clinic was right smack in the middle of that. 

There weren't a lot of what Alex would call good hiding places. Most of the yards were fenced in. He briefly wondered if one of the churches would let him take sanctuary, but he wasn't sure if sanctuary was an actual thing or not, and the churches doors were closed. 

He reached the end of the sidewalk about when he reached the end of his endurance and turned the corner at a jog. The road ahead was more forested, although wooden fences stood to either side of the road, across from the drainage ditches. 

The bottoms of his feet burned as if they'd been abraded with sandpaper. He wished he had shoes, even the incredibly uncomfortable charity pair he'd worn yesterday. Running barefoot on concrete was not something he'd recommend. 

Running barefoot on asphalt was worse. 


	19. A Meeting of Ways

Alice jolted up out of her mother's arms. Well, she'd been going for a jolt. With how stiff she was, what she accomplished had more in common with a roll. 

They were standing in front of the clinic, along with a small crowd. The fire alarm wailed from inside the building, a counterpoint to the sirens of the fire engines pulling up to the curb. Alice's father stood next to them, holding a bag of ice to his head and glowering. 

Alice looked at the firetruck and then their car. 

"We're in the way of the firetruck," she lied, pointing. 

Her mother followed her gaze. "We're in the way of--?" She stopped, and frowned. Mrs. Linh could be a little scatterbrained at times, the condition seemed to be a mom thing, honestly, but she wasn't _stupid_. 

"Our car's in the way," clarified Alice. She elbowed her mother and nodded in what she hoped was a significant way. 

"Right. I'll have to move it then. Stay with your father."

"What?" asked Mr. Linh. 

"I'm getting the car. Stay with Alice."

"Why _wouldn't_ I stay with Alice?" grumbled Mr. Linh at his wife's retreating back. 

A fireman tried to wave Mrs. Linh off, but she, with much pointing at the car and a brace of apologetic gestures, convinced him to let her by. A moment later, Mrs. Linh was in the car, and the fireman was scratching his head. 

Mrs. Linh drove out over the sidewalk to leave the clinic's parking lot, which was somewhat risky considering that the car was a van, an _elderly_ van. Even by the standards of Wishing, where new cars were hard to come by.

Still, it did make it, and Mrs. Linh pulled alongside Alice and her father. Before the car was complete still, Alice pulled open one of the passenger doors. Her father took longer getting in. 

"Why did you want the car?" asked Mrs. Linh as she pulled away from the curb.

"Alex got away. He set off the alarm and went down one of those little roads off past the Baptist church."

"Which?"

"I don't know. One of the ones without sidewalks. I'll point it out when we're there."

"Fine. Buckle up."

"I've got to see."

"I don't want to be pulled over by a cop because you were leaning over the back of my seat."

With an annoyed puff, Alice sat down and fiddled with the seatbelt. 

She looked up just in time. "There!" she exclaimed, lunging forward and almost choking herself on the seatbelt. "This road," she said, more quietly. 

Mrs. Linh cranked the steering wheel over, and they went around the corner at a dangerous angle. Mr. Linh's grasp on the arm of his chair turned white. Alice _thought_ she heard her mother quietly swear. 

But she was _absolutely_ _sure_ she her mother swore a minute later.

"He's gone," said Mrs. Linh.

"He's probably just hiding," said Alice, with forced confidence. "He'll probably come out once he realizes it's us." Unless enough time had passed for him to get off the road. 

"How?"

"Huh?"

"I don't think he'll recognize the van," clarified Mrs. Linh. 

No, he wouldn't. He had only driven in it the one time. Crap. 

Mrs. Linh started rolling down the window. 

"Maybe we should call for him," suggested Alice.

"The police are looking for him. We don't want them to notice us."

"Like they won't notice us creeping along the street?"

"What do you want me to do, Alice? I don't want them to find _him,_ either!"

"That isn't-- Oh! There he is!" Alice pointed.

Alex was in the ditch that ran alongside the road, and doing a remarkably good job of hiding, but it wasn't enough. The ditch was shallow, and his clothes showed too well against the soggy plants and the trash. 

Gosh, that was a miserable position.

Alice pulled open the door-- Or tried to. "Mom, really? The child safety lock?"

"I don't want you jumping out of the car while we're driving." She pulled over to the side of the road, and put the car into park. 

Immediately, Alice pulled the lock up and jumped out. Her mother followed. 

"Alex!"

He startled, eyes wide, and, catching sight of Alice, sagged.

"Come on," she said, dragging him across the road. "Quickly, before anyone comes. Mom, what are you doing? Get back in. You need to drive."

"You do need to drive, honey," said Mr. Linh. 

Alex came along quite easily, right up to the car door. Then he stopped dead, his chest going up and down far too quickly. 

"Alex, get in," urged Alice, halfway in herself. 

"I don't-- I--" he broke off, his lips still moving, but no sound coming out. Then, " _Drowning._ "

Alice didn't know what was going on, but she didn't have time to find out. "Alex, the sheriff is looking for you. You have to get in. We have to go."

The look Alex gave her was wild around the edges. But he got in. 

"Don't buckle in. Lay down," said Mrs. Linh, once Alice got the door closed. "On the floor."

"Me, or--"

"Alex. So they can't see you in the windows. Hurry." Mrs. Linh pulled back onto the road, still heading away from the clinic. They were going to take the long way home. 

With a whimper, Alex got down on the floor, and laid there, stiff, like a corpse, eyes squeezed shut and jaw clenched tight.

When Alice got her hands on the sheriff, she was going to... Ugh. Do something terrible. She'd think of something, eventually. Alice's obvious disadvantages would make it difficult for her to 'get her hands on' the man, anyway. 

"Hey," she said. "It's going to be okay. We're going to go home, and then we're going to figure everything out. Okay?"

"Y-Yeah. Just--" He swallowed. "Sorry. Remembered-- Bad experience with cars." 

"You remembered something?" asked Mr. Linh, twisting around in his seat. "What?"

The car went over a bump in the road, and Alex moaned. 

"Dad, do we have to do this _now?_ "

"When else will we have time? The sheriff could be onto us already."

"I don't remember much," said Alex, voice breaking. "It's complicated." He opened his eyes, and immediately closed them again. "I-- I am a simulacra, but..."

"It doesn't matter," said Alice, firmly. She sent a glare at her father, and at the back of her mother's head, but neither of them seemed inclined to object. 

"I remember before that, too, a little. I remember-- There was a car crash."

"You remember being Zachary."

Alex's eyes came open, and, on finding Alice's face, stayed open. "How do you know that name?"

"Your grandmother is our neighbor. She told me some things, while you were in jail. She used to work for the Office of Nomenclature, you know."

"No. No, I didn't. Do you--?" he stopped. "Did she--? Does she..." his voice dropped to a whisper. "Want me, or...?"

"I mean, it sounds like it? She was pretty hopeful that you were, uh, _you_."

"Oh, good." 

"We're almost there," said Mrs. Linh. "Just a little bit longer, and we're home."

"Do you think I could talk to her? My... grandmother, I mean."

"Maybe, if the police aren't watching her house anymore."

"Why are the police watching her house?"

"Because she's your grandmother."

"Oh."

"You're saying that a lot."

"I am?"

"And," said Mrs. Linh, pulling the wheel around, "here we ar-- Oh, hell!"

The driveway was full of cars. 

"I forgot they'd be here," said Mrs. Linh, voice barely higher than a whisper.

"Who is it?" asked Alex, at the same volume. 

"Wardens," said Mr. Linh. "They're the Wardens."

A woman-- Alice knew her from church, but couldn't name her-- stepped in front of the car and, with a deliberate air, made eye contact with all three of the Linhs. 

"Hello, Taylor," she said, loudly enough to be heard through the walls of the car. "If you could pull the rest of the way in. I believe you are blocking traffic."

Mrs. Linh smiled and nodded. "Hide," she said. The car started to inch forward. 

Alex, staying low to the ground, shuffled into the space between Alice's seat and the very back seat. 

"If all of you could come out," said the woman, as the car came to a stop, and Mrs. Linh put it into park. 

The Linhs slowly got out of the car, and stood in the driveway. Alice reassured herself that the Wardens had only come for Ms. Anger. They weren't here to look for Alex. 

"All four of you, please," said the woman.

Alice's mouth went dry.

"Ismene," said Mrs. Linh, "Ashton is still at school."

She shouldn't have met the woman's eyes.

"I know. Even so, there is still a passenger in your car. You are aware, of course, that it is a crime for a child to ride in a car without a seatbelt."

"Ismene, please."

"Yes. Please. Please come out, Zachary Walker-Rose."


	20. Ward as Bond

Alex heard his name, and his heart dropped. Sure, it had been dropping before, ever since Mrs. Linh made that sudden stop, especially when the Warden woman said 'all four of you.' But, when she had said his name, his _original_ name, his heart felt like it had been booted right off a cliff. 

They knew he was here. 

_How?_

"Don't worry so much," said the woman. "We aren't associated with the sheriff's office. Not directly. We simply wish to talk."

As far as Alex could see, there wasn't a single reason for him to trust her. 

"Would you take my word as my bond?" the woman asked. 

No, he wouldn't, actually. 

"Perhaps you would take Verity's?"

"Alex," came the voice of Verity Oroitz, "we only want to talk to you."

"And ask the Linhs some questions about Evangeline Anger's actions," said the woman, fairly. 

He took a deep breath and held it while he counted to five. What were his options? Could he make them forget he was here? 

If he did, what would he forget in turn?

But what else could he do? He couldn't fight them. He couldn't out wait them. They weren't going to just let him go.

Zachary let his breath out. Hopefully, he'd have enough presence of mind to stay put until they were gone. He'd pay so much for a pen or marker to write himself a note with. 

He reached for his magic and--

His eyelids fluttered. The extremely beige scene in front of him blurred. Where...? Chairs...?

He was in a car. 

Panic threatened to claw its way up his throat and drown him. He forced it back down. The car wasn't even moving. 

But-- _Why_ was he in a car? Whose car was this? Had he been kidnapped? If--

"Verity, check yourself," ordered a sharp voice. "I believe something has been altered."

"Really? I can't-- Oh. You're right. Wow, that's a lot different from how our family does things. One second, I'm going to need to figure out how to unlock this."

"No need. Zachary is in the car."

"What? Huh. Interesting. Once a significant piece of information from beyond the block is recovered, it becomes unstable..."

A loud sigh reached Zachary's ears. "I'm sure you're more than ready to try again, but let's save ourselves the time. It won't work."

She was right. 

He pulled himself up and out, and joined the Linhs in the driveway. The stones crunched under his feet. He kept his eyes down.

"Hello there, Zachary," said the woman. "My name is Ismene Alvis. I have been looking forward to talking to someone like you for a long time."

He recognized her, he realized. She was the one who had been behind Verity's eyes. 

That... did not bode well. Is that how she knew he was in the car? Had she somehow gotten her magic into him?

"Why?" Alex directed the rather harsh question to the driveway rocks. 

"That will take some time to explain. Taylor, may we borrow your dining room, while you three are being questioned by Bennett?" She gestured at a young man with large glasses and a windbreaker. 

"Of course," said Mrs. Linh. Her voice wavered slightly. "But, ah, we had to leave the clinic early, and Thuan isn't completely put together yet."

"I am aware of what happened at the clinic."

That was a neat trick, because Alex wasn't entirely sure what had happened at the clinic, and he had been there. What had happened to Mr. Linh to send him there, why they were talking about Ms. Anger, what had happened to the Linh's front door, and why the Wardens were here, if they weren't here for him were all mysteries to him. 

He hoped someone would fill him in. Eventually. 

He glanced at Alice, hoping for clues. She gestured at her face and mouthed something that might have been _don't look,_ then quickly looked away, back at her mother.

Mrs. Linh face did something that could, possibly, be described as a smile. "I see. But-"

"Bennett is licensed in first aid. Verity, Zachary, if you could join me." She started walking away, to the house, easily weaving around the other people bustling back and forth.

The damage was worse inside. It looked like a small bomb had gone off in the entryway, and a tornado in the hall and living room. The door was off its hinges, a chair was smashed into bits on the floor, pictures were knocked off the walls, and scraps of clothing were discarded on the floor. Something red-brown was staining the couch and the carpet. 

Alex no longer wanted to know what happened here.

Compared to the entryway and the living room, the kitchen was untouched. The cabinets were all thrown open, and the floor had been coated with cereal, but nothing was obviously broken. 

Ismene pulled a stool away from the counter, brushed some cereal from it, and sat. "Please sit," she said, indicating the remaining stools. 

Verity followed the order immediately. Alex hesitated, but complied. 

"You are nervous," stated Ismene. "Perhaps I can offer you something. Milk? Orange juice?"

"This isn't your house," said Alex, glaring at Ismene's powder blue sneakers. 

"It isn't, but that doesn't particularly matter." Ismene drummed her fingers on the counter top. "Verity tells me you are a 'real boy,' so to speak."

Was Alex supposed to respond to that?

"Considering what I have seen of you, I am inclined to agree." Ismene didn't immediately continue. "I am quite curious about how your magic functions. It takes a lot to disrupt my powers." She reached out to touch his chin, putting pressure on it, trying to force him to look at her. 

No, he decided. He wasn't going to do that. 

Ismene _tsked,_ and began to drum her fingers on the countertop _._ "I had utterly forgotten you. I was aware Walker-Rose had five greater simulacra, and yet I had forgotten you." She spread her hand flat. "He isn't the first to use simulacra. There is precedent for this."

"Precedent for _what?_ " asked Alex. "What's this all about, anyway? If you're going to throw me in a dungeon or use me as bait or something, can you get it over with?"

"We're not going to do that!" said Verity. "Edward-- Sheriff Sullivan-- might, but... That's awful."

"Do you still love your father, Zachary?"

"Of course I do."

"There is no 'of course' about it. He hurt you."

Alex swallowed. "He's just confused. He's sick."

"Hm. Yes. True. What would you do, to have him safe? To have him well again?"

"So you _are_ using me as bait."

"Mrs. Alvis..." started Verity, apprehensively.

"Not in the way you are thinking. This is more along the lines of a bargain. Consider: If things continue as they are, Walker-Rose will die. Either Edward will kill him, or he will starve himself to death in whatever miserable hole he is hiding in."

"You're saying you can stop that."

"I am. The Wardens are a powerful force. I believe Verity has already extended our offer to you, but allow me to clarify. We can protect you. We can protect your grandmother. We can even protect your father. We can give you the closest thing to a normal life Wishing has to offer. But we do require an exchange."

"What kind of exchange?" asked Alex. "I don't have anything to give you, and it isn't like I remember anything important." He glanced at Verity.

"You do," said Ismene. "You unlocked the door in your mind and looked through it. But you are correct, at least, in saying your knowledge is not what we want." Some of the softness went out of her smile. "All the same, I would thank you to not attempt to lie to me again. Particularly in Verity's presence. Have a care for her good name."

Alex's jaw clenched. How did she know about something that had only happened in his head?

"It is my power, to know things."

"So, what _do_ you want?" They had been dancing around the subject. 

"You. Or your father. Or you and your father. Although, to protect Walker-Rose, we must have him." Ismene held up a hand. "Not," she said, "as a prisoner. As a member. Or a ward. Your father is powerful. So are you."

"It is important to us," said Verity, her words only sounding slightly rehearsed, "to control memory magic. Even if you can't convince Walker-Rose to turn himself over, if you agreed to train with my family and use your magic for the good of Wishing, we would arrange for you and Glenys Weatherall to be left alone by the sheriff's office and for you to have a legitimate legal presence."

"Along with all the other perks generally associated with being a member of the Wardens," said Ismene. "Including an education in magic. On the other hand, if you were to convince your father to seek sanctuary with us, we would be able to do more." She began tapping the counter again. "Removing Walker-Rose as a threat to the community is worth a payment in and of itself. To add him to our ranks is worth more still. I cannot promise you we can cure him of his mental illness, but we shall try. _If_ you can bring him to us."

Alex tried to keep a scowl off of his face. "This is a power-play, then. You're trying to one-up the sheriff." Not to mention, _remove_ could mean so many things.

"We want Wishing to be a good place to live," said Verity. "Seeing as it's the only place we can live."

"We do not need your answer now," said Ismene. "Take your time. Think about it. Ponder. Consider. Plan. Meditate. Consider this a grace period. Verity will answer any questions you have. I am needed elsewhere." She swept off the stool.

Verity twisted around. "What's happened?"

"Nothing to concern yourselves about. Simply something that requires my authority." Then she was gone.

Both Alex and Verity watched the doorway for several long seconds. 

"She's you're boss, huh?"

"Yeah."

"And she's still watching us, isn't she?"

Verity shrugged. 

"What happened here, anyway?"

"Evangeline Anger tried to murder Alice Linh, before being stopped by Walker-Rose, for unknown reasons." Verity looked around the kitchen. "I understand there was something of a struggle."

He'd heard that name before and not just out in the driveway. "Is Evangeline Anger related to, um, Flora Anger?"

"She's her mother."

Oh. That was... Alice must be hurting, but she and her parents still came to help him. Still came to save him. 

"Why did she try to kill Alice?"

"I'm not part of that investigation. Ask your friend."

"You'll let me?"

Verity lifted one shoulder. "Maybe. It isn't up to me."

Alex nodded, accepting that for a moment. "If I... joined you, what would I have to do?"

"Same thing I do, probably, more or less, as far as your memory wiping power goes. You made the whole _town_ forget about you. You made _Mrs. Alvis_ forget about you-- And you knocked her out of a bunch of people's heads, too." Verity sounded almost awed.

"But what would I have to _do?_ " Alex fidgeted with the chair. "You have to work for the sheriff. I don't--" He shook his head. "I can't _do_ that."

Alex didn't want to accept the Wardens' 'offer' at all, but he wasn't sure he had a choice. 

Verity blinked. "Ah. Well. You won't have to do _that_ , I'm sure. Er. Most likely, Mrs. Alvis wants you to cover up large-scale events. To make Wishing safer for everyone. Perhaps some training with my family."

"So I'd be... like, a neuralizer?"

"Sure, you can think of it that way."

"But..." Alex trailed off, trying to put his thoughts into words.

"But that sounds sketchy, right? It sounds like we're one of those too-powerful secret organizations you read about in books? The ones that are invariably corrupt?"

Cautiously, Alex nodded.

"Well, we are. But there are worse things. At least we try, and we keep the sorcerers from getting to be too much." She sighed. "There's a limited amount of damage we can do, anyway. Wishing is basically a city in a bottle. You can't get away from us, you know."

Yeah. Alex knew. 

In a place like this... Alex could nearly understand why his father had turned to breaking the law, to cursing people, to madness. He hated this feeling of being boxed in, of having _no choices._

"There isn't a deadline on this, not from us," said Verity, "but you should probably decide sooner, rather than later. And tell Walker-Rose. Mrs. Alvis will know when you do."

"Creepy," said Alex before he had thought better of it.

"Yeah."

Verity began to walk around the kitchen.

"Wait. Deadline for what?"

"For your choice."

They were dedicated to this farce, weren't they? Unless there was some other option he wasn't seeing, one apparent to everyone but him.

"Are you leaving?" asked Alex.

"Not until everyone else does. I'm kind of here to make sure you don't run off until then." She shrugged. "Answering your questions is sort of secondary."

"Why 'until then?'"

Verity paused, and looked back at Alex. "Because we're negotiating with Edward to give you time to decide. We don't want you locked away again before you have a chance to deliver our message to deliver our message to Walker-Rose."

"How long will that take?"

"It depends on how angry Edward is. He's... not rational, about your father, or about resurrection. Either way, his guys won't come here while _we're_ here. We cooperate, but we try not to get _too_ close. If you understand me."

"I guess I do," said Alex. He wondered if he could reach out to Oroitz's power and borrow it for long enough to check if she was telling the truth.

But she'd notice, and she'd be in _his_ head, too. 

"You know I know about your friend, right?"

"What?"

"Alice. I know she..." Verity shrugged. 

Alex wondered what a heart attack felt like. Something like this, probably. He swallowed.

"Are you going to tell anyone?"

"It isn't like she's hurting anyone," said Verity. "But it isn't as if I have to _tell_ Mrs. Alvis."


	21. Ticking

The watch ticked. 

Alice had, of course, been hearing it tick ever since Alex brought her back to life. Now, however, it seemed louder and especially aggravation. 

Her parents had been taken for interviews, and she'd been shuttled off to Ashton's room with only one chaperon. The Warden watching her had a cold. She was sniffling a lot and smelled of cough drops. 

Ticking wasn't a strange sound to hear in a house. Right? 

The glossy pages of Ashton's book didn't give her any answers. _The Sights of Venice_ had nothing to do with the magic of Wishing. She closed the book, and tossed it off her lap. 

Why couldn't she at least wait in her _own_ room?

Without the book to occupy them, her hands shook. She sat on them.

The Wardens were supposed to be the good guys. But then, so was the sheriff, and the Wardens worked _with_ the sheriff. 

They had also agreed to ban resurrection magic. Sure, they'd been far from the only ones involved in the decision, but they'd still been part of it. They knew about Walker-Rose's search for the watch. Probably, they already had Ms. Anger's confession, her testimony about Alice's first death, everything she had picked up from Walker-Rose's speech.

Alice didn't want to die. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt.

She pushed the thought away. The Wardens hadn't said anything about the watch yet. Maybe they didn't know. Maybe they wouldn't do anything. 

They _did_ know about Alex. Alex, who, if he was Zachary Walker-Rose, had been brought back from the dead, just like Alice. 

Would they kill _him_?

The Warden sneezed, and Alice jumped. 

"Sorry," said the Warden. "Common cold. What can you do?"

"Stay home?"

The woman sniffed. "That's what I was doing. But emergency call, and all that. Ismene says jump, and we all jump. Hope I don't give this to you."

"Don't worry about it."

"Must have been a tough day for you."

"It was," said Alice, flatly, not inviting any more conversation. It was weird, having this person who might participate in her death making small talk with her. Thankfully, the Warden didn't push her. 

She pulled another of Ashton's books off the shelf, trying to distract herself. What time was it, anyway? The bus had to be coming soon. This was going to be a shock for him. 

Ismene Alvis walked into the room. 

"Hello, Alice," she said. "You can go now, Meredith."

The Warden looked hopeful. "Like, home, or..?"

"Go home."

"Thanks," said the Warden, backing out. 

"You and your friend present a dilemma," said Ismene. 

"We do?"

"Yes. The best way to solve it would be to have both of you join the Wardens. That way we wouldn't be legally required to kill you."

Alice reeled back, even though the statement was almost expected. "Excuse me?"

"The offer I extended to Zachary was that I would him a normal life in exchange for joining us." Ismene stepped to the middle of the room and stared down at Alice. "As well as other considerations for bringing his father to us. Or would it be better to call Walker-Rose his creator? Both are accurate enough."

"You... Want me to join the Wardens? But-- Why?"

"Because none of us particularly want to kill you. You're children." Ismene flicked a piece of lint off her shirt. "Also, the likely result of anyone trying to carry out the letter of the law would be," she paused, head tilted, "unpleasant. We do not need a repetition of the unrest that occurred when Lazarus Watchman lived. I mention this so you understand the gravity of your situation."

Alice nodded, swallowing. 

"Good. Show me the watch, please."

Alice pulled the watch from beneath her sweater but kept it clutched between her fingers. Ismene nodded. 

"That's the right idea. Put it away, now. You understand how you might benefit from being a Warden. You understand the responsibilities."

"Yeah," said Alice. She had heard stories. 

"You will join."

Alice didn't want to die. She bit back tears. This wasn't _fair_. "What will happen to Alex?"

"Hopefully, he will join as well. That will be your first task. Your second will be to help him convince his father. After that... We shall see. I doubt we will call on you often."

"Just-- Just like that?"

"You could always refuse. We would not expose you. Ms. Anger, however, would. You would not have our protection. The sheriff would come for you. The sorcerers would come for you. Walker-Rose is not the only one with an interest in the watch and if the others have less drive, they also have fewer scruples."

"You wouldn't let that happen."

"Oh?

Alice steeled herself. "You just said you didn't want unrest. Letting me die like that, letting the watch go, it would cause unrest."

Ismene smiled faintly. "Oh, yes. Among sorcerers. And hunting down a sorcerer who murdered a little girl is much less objectionable to most people than the execution of said little girl."

Alice pressed her lips together. She wished she could tell whether or not Ismene was serious, but she couldn't, and she was scared. "Can I--" she blurted out. She swallowed. "Can I think about it?"

Ismene's eyes widened microscopically, then her face went still. "You may. You will have as much time as Zachary does. Your brother is getting off his bus. I suggest you go meet him. It will take some time to explain the situation to him."

Alice stood, jerkily, and skirted Ismene before running down the hall and out of the house. It was tempting to keep running. Forever. But, physically, it wasn't possible. 

She couldn't believe she was being blackmailed into joining the Wardens. She'd never wanted to join them, even when she'd thought they were the good guys. She didn't know what she wanted to do with her life, stuck in Wishing as she was, but she didn't want to be a Warden. She hated fighting, and she hadn't even mastered the drama at school. 

But she had to take care of her brother. He must be freaked out by all the people and the broken down door. Alice was still freaked out, and she'd had most of the afternoon to come to grips with it.

School-bus yellow flashed at her between the trees screening the house from the road. There was no sign of Ashton, but Alice had long since learned that not seeing Ashton didn't mean he wasn't there. Crows didn't show up well against dark, wet, trees. Especially if they sat still. 

"Ashton?" she called. None of the Wardens stopped her from walking to the mouth of the driveway, but she felt them watching. The trees dripped on her. "Ashton? Are you up there? It's okay to come down. They're just Wardens."

'Just' Wardens. Just the people blackmailing her into joining them by threatening her life. That's all. Weren't child soldiers illegal? Sure, the Wardens' legality was questionable, even considering the realities of Wishing, but blackmailing children felt like it should be _more_ illegal. Didn't these people have standards?

 _Not if they want to recruit you,_ said a snide inner voice. She told the inner voice to shut up.

Did Ashton not get off the bus? Did he fly away when he saw all the strangers?

"Ashton?" she called again, stepping forward. He might have gone across the street. "Come on!"

A very hesitant caw came from above and behind Alice. She turned and looked up. Hunched over on a V the trunk of the tree formed with a branch was Ashton. Alice sighed with relief. She'd been worried. Well, she was still worried, but not about losing Ashton.

She held out her arms. "Come on down. I've got to tell you some stuff."

They wound up back in Ashton's room, this time, thankfully, without any Wardens in it at all. The events of the day took a long time to recount, and Alice wasn't sure how much of the explanation Ashton actually absorbed. He bobbed in the right spots and cawed queries at the beginning, but, after a while, the mime game got exhausting, and it had been a long day. 

"Alice? Ashton?" 

Alice rose from the bed. "Mom?" 

Quick footsteps beat down the hallway, culminating in Alice's parents appearing in the door. They didn't waste any time before hugging her. 

"They're gone, now," said Alex, and Alice peeked around her parents to see him standing, looking beaten, in the hall. He sniffed. "Did they try to recruit you, too?"

"They tried to recruit you?" asked Mrs. Linh, alarmed. 

Alice nodded, miserably. 

"But you're just children! Ismene should know better."

"You _know_ her?" asked Alice. 

Mrs. Linh gave Alice an exasperated look. "You should, too. We go to church together."

"Well, I guess we're not 'just children' to them. We're zombie freaks who they won't protect unless they've got a reason to." Alice sniffed, and crossed her arms, pulling out of the hug.

"Did she actually _say_ that--?" started Mrs. Linh in a strangled voice.

"Basically!" shouted Alice, actively choosing to get angry instead of sad. "If we don't do what they want, they'll let Ms. Anger tell everyone about me, and I bet they'll just let the sheriff take Alex, and-- and--" her sentence broke off in a huge, angry sob. 

Fine. So she couldn't just _choose_ not to be sad. Whatever. 

"I think," started Alex, who still hadn't been able to enter the room, "maybe I could do something?"

Mr. and Mrs. Linh stepped back, bracketing Alice. "What do you mean?" asked Mr. Linh. 

"My... original name. The power I have is making people forget things. I think I could make everyone forget about the watch. Then they wouldn't any reason to go after you. The thing is," he rubbed his hands together, "it really would be _everyone._ Us, too. I don't think I can pick and choose. It didn't work on-- on my father, but I don't know why. And... Ismene noticed when I did it, in the car. But I think she still forgot. She had to have Verity check herself to make sure."

Mrs. Linh let out a puff of air. "That might be dangerous. Doesn't the watch have to stay on in order to work?"

"What if we wrote a note for ourselves?"

Mrs. Linh put a hand to her head. "It's an option," she said. "Did they give you, either of you, a deadline?"

"Ismene just said I had until..." She looked at Alex. "Do you want to be called Alex or Zachary?"

He shrugged. "I don't care."

"She said I hand until Alex decided."

"Right before they left, they said I had three days. That's all the more they could get from the sheriff."

"Three days," repeated Mrs. Linh. "Counting today?"

"Oh," said Alex, frowning. "I didn't ask."

Mrs. Linh bit her lip. "Did they even say what they want you for?"

"They want me to recruit my-- my father, and erase memories, I guess," said Alex.

Alice shook her head. "They didn't really say. Spying, I guess? I mean, what else would they want me for?"

Mrs. Linh closed her eyes. Her skin had gone blotchy, and she looked halfway between furious and faint. "We have three days. Three days to work this out."

"Yes," said Mr. Linh, putting a hand on her shoulder. "A whole week, and we're all tired. Why don't we find something to eat and figure out what to do with the door?"

"What we have to figure out," said Mrs. Linh, "is how to keep our children from being-- from being _drafted_ by a private army!" She threw up her hands. "I can't believe I _donated_ to them!"

"Yes, but it'll be better to do that with food, and the front door taped up." Mr. Linh led his wife away, back into the hallway. 

The only sound in the room was the ticking of the watch.

"'Our children,'" echoed Alex. "Did something happen to Ashton?"

Ashton shook his head. 

"No," said Alice. "I think they were talking about you."


	22. Secret Kingdoms

By nightfall, the Linh house was, if not clean and entirely intact, at least livable again. Everything broken had been thrown out or put to the side, and the front door had been sealed with duct tape and garbage bags. They made a weird noise when the wind blew, but they kept most of the cold and damp out. 

Both their (late) lunch and dinner were microwaved mac and cheese. Alex ate four. He hadn't had anything to eat since pizza at the school the previous day, and he was starving. Literally. 

No one wanted to talk about the Wardens after dinner, so they went to bed. The three children decided to stay in Alice's room. As the one with the door, it was easiest to barricade, and they only took a couple of minutes to bring in what Ashton needed. Bringing over Ashton's mattress, for Alex to sleep on, took longer, but they managed. 

Mr. and Mrs. Linh didn't say anything about it, except to give advice on how to block the door. It was possible, they said, that someone would see the front door missing and decide to rob them.

"Are you going to try to find your father?" asked Alice, once the three of them were securely wrapped in their sheets. 

"I think I have to," said Alex. "I wanted to, in the first place." Idly, he switched between covering his left eye and covering his right as he stared up at the ceiling. 

He hadn't paid attention to it when running from the clinic, because it didn't hurt anymore, but his vision in his right eye was awfully blurry. He wondered if the impairment was permanent. 

"Are you going to try and get him to, well, join the Wardens?"

"Would it be such a bad thing?" asked Alex, staring up at the ceiling. 

"I don't know," admitted Alice. "I don't like being forced to do stuff."

"Yeah. But I don't think I have much of a choice." He turned over, so he was facing Alice. "Will you still help me? I wound up being pretty useless with your problem."

"Well, yeah, duh."

Alex was quiet for a minute. "Thanks." He took a deep breath, and quickly said, "I know where he is."

Alice sat up. "You do?"

"Where he probably is, anyway. Do you think you could--?"

"I could look," said Alice, doubtfully, "but if it's hidden, I might not be able to find it."

"That won't be a problem," said Alex, "at least, it shouldn't be. Not if you can take me with you."

"Uh. I can't take anyone with me when I go out of body."

"You said that," said Alex, "but I think that with my magic helping, you can."

"You _think_."

"Yeah. But, try. Please?"

"Okay, okay. Isn't like it'll hurt anything, I guess. You'll want to be in a comfortable position, though. Otherwise you'll be super stiff when you wake up."

"Right," said Alex. He pulled up his blankets, and tried to think relaxed thoughts. 

Ashton cawed. 

"Sorry," said Alice. "We'll tell you what happens when we come back. If we wind up going anywhere."

The room fell quiet. Alex could hear himself and Alice breathing, and the watch ticking, and not much else. He focused on Alice's magic, on feeding it with his own. He hoped this worked. 

Time ticked on. Had Alice already tried? Was it not worki--?

Cold hands closed around Alex's wrists, and yanked him up, into the air. He gasped, and blinked hard. 

"Sorry," said Alice. "I wasn't quite sure how to, uh, take you out."

"That's fair," said Alex. He hadn't thought about it, either. He glanced down at himself. "This is weird."

"You get used to it," said Alice. She grinned. "Especially the flying part. Hey, do you think I could take Ashton, too?"

"Maybe?"

She reached towards Ashton, letting go of Alex as she did so. "I'm going to try--"

All at once, he was back in his own body, nerves tingling. He laid on the bed, breathing harder than he should have. He felt like he'd been dropped. 

Just as suddenly, he was pulled back out. 

"Okay! So, apparently I have to be touching you for that to work. Great." She used her head to point to her right. "This is Ashton, by the way."

"Caw," said the boy holding Alice's other hand. Then he burst out laughing. "You should see your face!" He ran his free hand over his face. "I have a face. I have _hands,_ this is great."

Ashton looked a lot like Alice: short, Asian, and slightly transparent.

"You don't, exactly," said Alice. "This is an _out of body_ experience. Hands are part of your body."

"I'm talking for, like, a minute, and you're already nit-picking me."

Alice blushed. "Well. I wouldn't have to if you weren't wrong."

"Cool!" said Alex, more loudly than he had to. "We can all go like this." It would be awkward and unwieldy, but they could go through walls, so it didn't matter. 

"Actually, I think we shouldn't," said Ashton.

"What?"

"I'm not attached to being a bird or anything," said Ashton, "and I _definitely_ want to do this again later, but if only the two of you go, you could grab Walker-Rose and talk to him without, you know, being turned into a bird." He tilted his head and smiled slyly. "Did that not occur to you? Either of you? At all?"

Alex exchanged a look with Alice. It hadn't.

"His powers might still work when he's out of body?" said Alice. "I mean, Alex's are working."

"But he has to touch you to get you."

"And I'd have to touch him to pull him out."

"But he wouldn't _really_ be touching you, would he? Does anyone else's magic work on you while you're astral?"

Alice frowned. "Most of the time, people don't realize I'm there. No one has ever tried to do anything to me like this."

"It'd still be better than going up to him face-to-face without any protection at all," said Ashton, leaning into Alice. "Even if you were changed, you would be able to come back here without having to learn to fly to come home or being attacked by simulacra." He winced, and turned to Alex. "No offense. You wouldn't attack Alice, but the other ones aren't like you."

"It's fine," said Alex. But he had to wonder, were they? The girl in purple had spoken to him, at least, and he would swear there was malice in his father's double. 

Of course, that might just be because the double did his best to put Alex's eye out.

Alice chewed her lip. "You're right. Let's go talk to him and get this over with."

"Are you sure?" asked Alex. 

"Yeah. He basically said he wasn't going to be cursing people anymore, and he didn't curse me before, so... It should be fine, right? He's your dad. You know him better than I do."

"I mean, probably?" While Alex remembered being Zachary, remembered his second life as a simulacra, he'd barely touched the surface of either of those lives. 

(He loved his father, but he didn't know him. Not really.)

Alice tilted back her head and groaned. "I was hoping for something more..."

"Confident?" suggested Ashton. 

"Sure, let's go with that."

"Well, _I'm_ confident," said Ashton. 

"Yeah, and you have nothing to lose," snapped back Alice. "What if he can turn my body into a bird by touching me while I'm astral, and the watch slips off? Can I even wear it as a bird?"

"Yeah..." said Alex. "That could be a problem."

"Ugh. You know what? I don't care. We're doing this. Ashton, try and keep the watch on me if I do start to grow feathers. We'll go from there."

"Uh," said Ashton, looking a lot less enthusiastic, "are you sure?"

"Yep," she said and let go of Ashton's hand. 

His shimmery astral body vanished, and his real body let out a strangled _squork_ as he toppled from his perch. Alice winced. 

"Oops. Whelp. Um. Which way, Alex?"

"This way," he said, tugging her through the wall of the house. 

They flew up the road back to town. Alice wanted to go higher, but Alex had never gone there from above, and he was leery of going so high. Falling wasn't a problem, considering that their bodies had been left safely in the house, but the idea of going that far up, of going above the treetops, made him nervous.

At first, the street was dark. So dark, Alex had to strain his eyes. But as they grew closer to town, they passed by golden houselights shining from behind windows and curtains, harsh porchlights and floodlights, and anemic garden solar lights. When they reached the first streetlight, Alex stopped. 

"This way," he said, pointing to the cross street. They turned. 

The cross street went on for a long time, but it wasn't well maintained and eventually ran down into a gravel road. 

"Are we getting close?" asked Alice. 

"Yeah, we've just got to-- There!" Alex pointed at an old beat-down gate with tall grass growing behind it. A faded sign next to it proclaimed that it was the future site of a housing development. The date on the sign was from several years ago. 

"There what?"

"The way to the hideout," said Alex, pulling her through the gate. "It isn't even another mile."

"But nothing's here," protested Alice. "Mom told me about this place. Some company wanted to build here, but the city council managed to make them give up before any of them found out about magic. They never even broke ground."

"Yep. So they didn't demolish the buildings here, either. Dad wasn't _just_ coming to visit grandma," said Zachary, "he was an architect. They wanted to put some big, fancy houses up here."

(How much of that had he known, half a minute ago? His memories felt closer here, like the door holding them back had slipped ajar.)

"I think Ms. Weatherall mentioned that. Funny. I guess I never thought of him as having a job. But all of the sorcerers must've at some point, right? Except for the ones who start out as kids."

"I can understand that," he said. 

Alice frowned, but didn't comment. "So, he's hiding out in one of the old houses up here?"

"I think they're mostly barns and sheds, and some of it is tents, but, yeah. A bunch of them are."

"The simulacra?"

"No, sorcerers. They aren't all loners." Most of them weren't, actually. They had a sort of shadow society up here, making deals, keeping one another alive and hidden, despite the best efforts of the sheriff and the Wardens. 

After all, neither of them expected sorcerers to willingly allow themselves to be turned into crows. 

"And no one's noticed?" asked Alice in a scandalized tone. 

"I guess not. They aren't grouped together," he made a clumping motion with his free hand, "so that probably helps. Like, they're all spread out in the forest. Magic helps, too, and everything is overgrown."

"Uh-huh."

"Wait until you see the buildings."

The space under the trees was almost black. But Alex had come this way without lights before. 

"Hey," said Alice, "do you remember _which_ sorcerers live out here?"

"Not especially." Faces flickered in the dark of his mind. He frowned. "Only that they're there. Here." He made a vague motion with his hand. "And maybe some homeless people, too?"

"Wishing doesn't have homeless people."

"What do you call sorcerers, then?"

"Criminals on the run."

Alex laughed. "Okay, and aren't criminals on the run homeless?" A pinpoint of light caught his eye. "This way," he said.

"Good thing we can fly, otherwise I'd be nagging you about being lost."

"I'm not lost. Look! Light!"

The building, if it could be called that, was as Alex remembered it: old, small, covered in moss and held together by ivy. The large tree it leaned on was probably the only thing keeping it up. A red light flickered in the window, and a pitiful wisp of smoke curled from a half-collapsed chimney. Wild roses grew in chaotic clumps wherever there was enough room for them, and lesser simulacra laid scattered on the ground and hung in the trees, not moving. The largest of the greater simulacra stood outside the door. 

"Wow," said Alice. Despite being, in theory, untouchable, the two of them drew closer together. 

"Yeah."

"You _lived_ here?"

"Wouldn't call it living _per se_ , but, yep."

They floated closer, describing a wide arc around the big guy and entered the dilapidated house through the wall. 

The room was full of broken bodies. Alice shrieked. 

"They're just old simulacra," said Alex. "See?" He pointed. Rotting petals spilled from each of the gaping wounds. 

"You knew this was here?" Alice's voice squeaked. 

"I guess?"

Alice sighed. "Are the other rooms are, like, super creepy?"

 _"All_ of the rooms are super creepy."

"Great."

They went through the next wall. If the previous room looked like the site of a mass murder, the initial impression of this one was that of a gateway to hell. A fire burned in a chipped hearth, casting flickering shadows and red light on the stained walls. The remaining three greater simulacra clustered around it, staring. Smudged black writing covered the walls. Smoke hung in the air, despite the chimney.

"Where's Walker-Rose?" asked Alice. 

"She's holding him," whispered Alex, nodding at the simulacra of his mother.

(Seeing her hurt.)

They floated around in front of her. 

"He sleeps as a crow?"

Zachary shrugged. "Sometimes."

"Are you ready?"

"Yeah," he lied. 

Alice reached out to touch the crow. Alex waited, fidgeting. He had no idea what he was going to say.

Then he was there. Brandon Adrian Grant Walker-Rose. Alex's father. Zachary's father. He looked beaten. Completely unlike how he'd been at the grange. 

Zachary didn't like it.

The man stared down at Zachary, then reached up to put his hand over his heart. "Am I dead?"

"No!" said Zachary, quickly. "You're fine. This is Alice's magic. We're just, um, what did you call it?"

"Astrally projecting," said Alice, "or out of body. You're fine. You'll stay this way as long as I'm holding onto you. Probably."

"Oh," said Walker-Rose. He sounded disappointed. "I thought about it. Dying. I almost told Eleanor to do it."

Zachary grabbed Walker-Rose's other hand. "What? Why?"

He smiled, faintly, brokenly. "Isn't it obvious, Zachary?" He freed his hand from Zachary's and lightly traced the side of Zachary's face. 

Despite himself, when Walker-Rose's fingers came close to his eyes, he flinched. 

"I hurt you."

"You didn't mean to," said Zachary. "You didn't know what you were doing."

"But I did. I did mean to. And I should have _known_ what I was doing. I've failed you. I've failed you so many times. I can't trust myself not to do something worse."

"You won't. Please don't-- Don't _say_ things like that."

"You and... your grandmother will be better off without me. Safer. You don't need me."

"I _do_ need you! I love you. I--" Zachary faltered. 

"What could you need me _for?_ "

"Protection!" interjected Alice. "I mean, well," she drew back slightly when both of the others turned to face her. "The sheriff beat him up, and the Wardens are blackmailing him. They want him to work for them. The Wardens, I mean, not the sheriff. Me, too, I guess, but..." she trailed off, her eyes flicking between Zachary and Walker-Rose. 

Zachary looked back up at his father. "They said protect us from the sheriff if you joined them, and we could be a family again. They said they'd try to... to cure you."

"Cure me?"

"So that you weren't--" No, that wouldn't be the right way to say this. "So that you were sane again."

This time, Walker-Rose's smile was rueful. "Oh, Zachary. That's not how mental illnesses work."

"Then come with me and tell me how they do work," said Zachary. He seized the hem of Walker-Rose's shirt. "Just don't-- don't give up and-- and leave me. Don't decide that I'm-- that I'm not worth staying. That I'm not-- that I'm not real enough. Don't go."

Walker-Rose was silent. Zachary couldn't bring himself to look up at him. Time seemed to warp and stretch and spiral. What had he said that was so wrong? Was everything about to fall apart?

Zachary gasped as he was pulled into a one-armed hug. 

"I won't leave you," said Walker-Rose. "I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry."

Zachary hugged him back and finally let himself cry. 


	23. Home

Breakfast cereal should not be blurry. Alex rubbed his eyes, and winced. The one that had been injured still hurt. Actually... He closed one eye. Then he opened it, and closed the other. Crap. His vision in his right eye had deteriorated further overnight. 

"Didn't sleep well?" asked Mr. Linh, sympathetically. He was sitting on the other side of the table, nursing a huge cup of coffee. Meanwhile, Ashton and Mrs. Linh were in the kitchen, with Mrs. Linh fussing over Ashton's birdseed.

Alex debated whether or not to mention his ocular issues and settled on a shrug. 

"No," grumbled Alice. 

Alex grunted in agreement. "We don't have to go to school today, do we?"

"It's Saturday," said Alice.

"So is that a yes or a no?"

"There's no school on Saturdays. Or Sundays."

"Which ones are Sundays?"

"I thought you were getting your memories back."

"It's too early."

"That doesn't make sense."

The telephone rang, saving Alex from responding. Mrs. Linh picked it up.

"Hello?" 

Everyone was quiet. Waiting. Watching. A frown made its way onto Mrs. Linh's face.

"Slow down, Luke, you aren't making sense."

"Luke?!" Alice leapt from her seat and practically vaulted over the table. The phone was in her hands before anyone knew what was happening. "How are you not a crow anymore?"

She listened intently for several minutes.

"He walked up to you? Just like that? Why were you out so early, anyway?" Another long pause. "Well, it sucks that you didn't get a chance to fly." She shook her head. "No, I one hundred percent agree. That's great! Your brothers, too? Do you know if-- Yeah, yeah, I'll tell them. Hold on." She lowered the phone. "Luke got un-cursed!"

Ashton cawed, and flapped his wings.

"How?" asked Mrs. Linh. 

"Apparently, Walker-Rose showed up when he was out learning to fly from his brothers," she said, "and he lifted the curse on all of them. And," she continued, "Walker-Rose was heading this way."

"Do you think--" started Mrs. Linh.

But she was interrupted by a crow flying in through the crow door, ramming into Ashton, and immediately flying back out.

Alex's mouth dropped open. The cereal spoon fell from his hand. The transformation of Ashton from bird to boy occurred, almost unnoticed, in the periphery of his vision. 

"Uncool!" he shouted after the long-gone crow, also known as his father. "Uncool! Talk to me, darn it! Don't just swoop in and out!"

"I'm not a crow anymore!" celebrated Ashton, words somewhat slurred. "Yes! No more birdseed! Give me the sugar!"

"You can't eat sugar for breakfast," said Mrs. Linh, hugging Ashton.

"Yeah, he was just here," said Alice into the phone. "I'm going to have to call you back later."

"I can tell Mom and Dad that you're dating Luke!"

Silence. 

"You're _what?"_ said Mr. Linh.

"Wow, way to ruin the moment."

Mr. Linh pinched the bridge of his nose. However, he didn't say anything else about Alice's dating habits, and instead got up and patted Ashton on the shoulder. "Let's get you some clean clothes. You've been wearing those for years."

"I think you need a shower, too, sweetie."

With that, Mr. and Mrs. Linh ushered Ashton out of the kitchen.

"So," said Alice, drawing out the word. "Have you decided what you're going to do yet?"

The cereal became interesting again. Alex put a spoonful in his mouth to stall. "Have you?" he asked, finally.

"I'm going to join," said Alice. "It's great of you to offer to do the memory thing, but if they found out..." Alice shivered. "It isn't worth it, and, hey, there are supposed to be a lot of perks, right? The Wardens _are_ a secret society of magic users, after all."

Alex nodded. "Me, too." He stirred his cereal. "I want to be able to go to school and stuff." Also, he didn't want Alice to be alone in this. He could go hide out with his father and the other sorcerers. Alice? Not so much.

The phone rang again, making them both jump. Alice dropped it, but managed to catch it again before it hit the floor.

"You don't think--?"

"Answer it," said Alex. 

"Hello?" said Alice, hesitantly. "Okay. I understand. We'll be there. Is there anything--?" She pulled the phone away from her face and stared at it. "She hung up!"

"Ismene?"

Alice nodded. "She wants to meet us at the library at one."

"Did she say why?"

"No. Ms. Weatherall told me she can see through other people's eyes, but there has to be more to it. I wonder what else her magic is."

"Creepy."

"Well, that, too."

The wait until one was sickening. Listening to Mr. and Mrs. Linh talk to Alice about 'options' and if she 'wanted to change her mind' was somehow worse. They tried to draw Alex into the conversation, told him that he had options as well, but he didn't see them. 

Even his father hadn't come up with any good alternatives, last night. 

Ashton seemed to be of the same opinion, or, at least, he noticed how uncomfortable Alex felt, and pulled him away into his room and taught Alex card games for an hour. The games were interesting, but Alex was too worried to have fun. 

At last, the dreaded hour arrived, and Alex and all the Linhs bundled into the car to drive to the library. No one spoke. Mr. Linh fiddled with the radio for the entire five-minute drive, never staying on one station for more than a few seconds. 

None of this made the ride easier for Alex. Every bump the car went over gave him visions of the car flipping. Falling. Crashing. Sinking. 

When they got to the library parking lot, it was deserted except for one other car and the library's neon sign read 'closed.' A chain link fence bordered the sides of the parking lot not occupied by the library. Behind the building and on one side of the fence, grew a thick tangle of saplings and blackberries. 

"That's not right," said Mr. Linh. "They're supposed to be open, except for Sundays."

"Do you think the Wardens care?" asked Mrs. Linh. "At least one of the librarians is a Warden. I saw them at our house yesterday."

"But they've never done something like this before, it's too public. What if an outsider came by?"

"You think someone from out of town is going to swing by our run-down public library?" asked Alice. 

Everyone in the car stared out at the library. Alex didn't think it looked run-down, but he didn't have a whole lot to compare it to.

"Let's go," said Alice. She pulled on the door. "Mom! The child safety locks."

"Sorry, sorry."

They piled out. "So," said Alex, "should we try and go in, or...?"

"I don't know, she didn't say."

But at that point the door of the other car opened, and Ismene got out. She smiled at them. 

"I am glad you have decided to join us. Alex. Alice. Please come with me." She gestured to the car. "I am going to take you to initiation."

"I'm sorry," said Mrs. Linh, stepping forward and blocking Alice and Alex. "But you aren't taking my children anywhere."

Ismene's smile visibly thinned, even from across the parking lot. "I'm afraid that it really isn't up to you anymore, Taylor. It isn't up to any of us. They won't be tolerated unless they are contained. Do you want another resurrection war? Do you want the rest of your family at the center of it?"

"Contained?" demanded Alice. 

"Only insofar as you will be answerable to us. It is a compromise that will sufficiently satisfy everybody."

"It doesn't satisfy me," said Mrs. Linh. 

"Taylor. This is the option that gets your daughter protection. I am aware that her joining us is not ideal. If it were not necessary, I would not be requiring it. Nor would I particularly desire it. Her power is somewhat redundant, compared to those already at our disposal."

"She only needs protection because you won't keep the woman who tried to kill her from talking!"

"The woman who _did_ kill her. That is the root of the problem."

"Mom," said Alice, taking Alex's hand, "it's fine. We already decided to do this." 

"Are you sure?" asked Mr. Linh, quietly. He put his hand on Alice's shoulder. "There are still things we can do."

Alice nodded. If only Alex could be that confident. Ever since Ismene said 'contained,' he'd had images of being caged again in his head. 

"I'm not terribly satisfied with this arrangement, myself." 

All six people in the parking lot turned towards the new voice. Walker-Rose stood by the entrance with a crow perched on his shoulder. 

"Dad!" said Zachary. Alice held tight to his hand.

Walker-Rose gave him an uninterpretable look and returned his attention to Ismene. Her smile had grown genuine again. 

"Brandon. I expected you, of course."

"I'm sure," said Walker-Rose. "But if you want me to even _consider_ joining you, you'll leave my son, and his friends, alone."

"To do so would be to condemn them," said Ismene, raising her eyebrows. "We have offered to leave them alone entirely, but that is not the option they wish to choose."

A flash of light came from overhead, and thunder grumbled in the sky. 

"Then give them the protection you would otherwise, only in exchange for _my_ service, not theirs."

"Why would I agree to that, when we can have all three of you?"

Lightning again. 

"I know your mother is on your shoulder, Brandon," shouted Ismene over the thunder. "Cut the theatrics!"

"Oh, but she isn't the _only_ one here."

The next time lightning flashed, it back-lit an enormous flock of crows rising from the woods behind the library. 

The crows made the already overcast sky even darker. They settled on the roof of the library, on the fence, on the asphalt, on the sidewalks, on the cars, and on the shoulders of the Linhs and the Walker-Roses. 

Then the simulacra came, climbing over the fence. The girl with glasses came first, having managed to find a new set of clothes. The tall man and Walker-Rose's twin flanked her, and the copy of Zachary's mother faded into the background behind them. Behind her were the lesser simulacra, scrambling blank-faced bodies, limbs everywhere.

"I'm _sure_ you expected the simulacra. But the crows? Did you pack enough of your cronies into the library to handle them?"

Ismene looked pale. Her smile was completely gone, and her eyes were wide. She pressed against the side of the car, her fists clenched. 

"You know, of course," said Walker-Rose, his voice lightened to a sickly sweetness, "that even cursed, even transformed, those with magic can still use it?"

"All these-- You've been lifting curses all day. Who are they? Where did they come from?"

Walker-Rose simply shrugged. 

"You won't be able to keep this up," snarled Ismene.

"I won't have to. No one needs to do anything, so long as you do the right thing."

For a long moment, only the wind spoke. Then Ismene nodded. "Fine. But their protection will be contingent on _your_ behavior and contributions."

"And your protection will be on yours. Funny how that works, isn't it?"

Ismene actually scowled. "Get in the car," she said, harshly. 

"In a minute," said Walker-Rose. He picked the crow up off of his shoulder, and, abruptly, it was no longer a crow, but the old woman from the grange, Ms. Weatherall.

Zachary's grandmother. 

This time, he did pull free from Alice's grip. He ran to his family, scattering crows who cawed at him in annoyance, and hugged his father. 

They had not physically touched since the grange. Astral projecting didn't count. Inside Zachary, something finally settled. He sighed, pressing his face into his father's chest. Finally, _finally_ he's found him. He's found Brandon Adrian Grant Walker-Rose. 

"I'm going to have to go," said the man, after a few long moments. He patted Zachary awkwardly, as if he had forgotten how to give hugs. Or, perhaps, the problem was that he had forgotten how to receive them. 

"I know," said Zachary, looking up. "But you'll come back, won't you? You'll visit?"

Walker-Rose smiled down at Zachary, then looked over at Ismene. "I'll try." He pulled away, looking at his mother. "Well, Mom. We're finally both here."

A raindrop fell from the sky. "I know. I'm sorry I wasn't there for you, Brandon."

"I didn't let you," said Walker-Rose. "You-- You'll keep him safe, won't you?"

"As long as I'm able."

Walker-Rose pushed Zachary at Ms. Weatherall. "Be good for your grandmother."

Zachary nodded. The rain was coming harder, now. Before too long, they'd be soaked through. 

"You're wasting time," called Ismene, irritably. The rain was making her hair limp. "Get on with it. And get all of these," she gestured at the parking lot, "out of here before some outsider comes by."

The lesser simulacra began to retreat, but the crows and greater simulacra remained. Walker-Rose gave Ismene a very nasty smile. 

"Brandon," said Ismene. 

"Come now, heaven knows I wouldn't wish getting stuck here on anyone, but I'm not going to give up my leverage. I'm willing to work with you, not engage in whatever brainwashing you inflict on your recruits."

"Fine," snapped Ismene, whirling on her heel and reentering her car. 

Walker-Rose gave Zachary one last pat and walked to Ismene's car. The three older-looking simulacra came with him, squeezing into Ismene's small car. Ismene pulled out of her parking spot with a jerk and sped out of the parking lot at a speed that had to be unsafe. 

The girl in glasses stayed. 

"Do you need a ride home?" asked Mrs. Linh, looking back and forth between the simulacra, Ms. Weatherall, and Zachary. "The van _can_ fit seven. If we squeeze a little."

"I am here to make sure you get there," said the girl. She adjusted her glasses. 

"Yes," said Ms. Weatherall. "That would be wonderful. I think my son forgot that humans can't fly."

"We're going home?" asked Zachary, sagging against her a little. 

Ms. Weatherall wrapped her arm around Zachary. "Yes, we are."


	24. Chapter 24

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An epilogue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it! Thank you so much for reading! It took me a while to get here, huh?
> 
> Constructive criticism is very much appreciated.

Alice raised a hand to shield her eyes from the sun. It shone red through the edges of her fingers, and through her eyelids, like a flashlight held too close. 

Back when she had only ever seen the sun while projecting herself, she'd never experienced this. She had never felt the warmth of sunlight on her skin. On the other hand, she had never experienced the stickiness of sunscreen, or the soreness of sunburn, either. 

(Worth it.)

"I'm going to Ms. Weatherall's!" she shouted over her shoulder.

"Okay, don't slam the d--!"

But Alice had already let go of the (new) storm door, and it banged against the frame with a sound like a thunderclap. She winced, imagining her mother's face and annoyance. 

Before Mrs .Linh could call her back, Alice raced down the stairs. 

"Hey!" shouted Ashton from up in his tree. "Where're you going?"

"Next door," said Alice. 

Ashton, and everyone who had been crows for any length of time, had retained some birdlike habits. Many of them developed speech impediments or a odd, hopping way of walking. Ashton, meanwhile, had decided that perching in trees was the one thing from his time as a bird that he couldn't live without. 

It drove their mother crazy. She was certain he would fall and break his skull. 

"Mom's gonna be mad," he said dangling upside-down from his branch. "You're not supposed to slam the door."

"And you're not supposed to climb that high. Want to come with me?"

"Sure," said Ashton. He shimmied down the tree, then struck a superman pose. "Lead on, sister!"

"You're a nut."

"And what does that make you?"

Alice shook her head, and headed for the street. Ashton scampered after her, chuckling. 

Ms. Weatherall's looked much better than before. Her lawn was mown, though indifferently, and there were a couple potted plants around the door, bright-colored, sun-thirsty flowers. The house itself had been painted. Alice and Ashton had helped with that, last week. 

The door hung open, the frame filled with a screen to keep insects out. The near-constant presence of simulacra on the property took care of other unwanted intruders. Alice knocked on the wall. 

"Who is it?" called Alex from inside.

"Just us!"

"Okay! Come in! We're in the kitchen!"

Alice pushed aside the screen without another thought and stepped over the small hill of shoes and sandals just inside. The inside of the house was brighter than it had been during Alice's first visit. The gloomy feeling it had possessed was entirely absent.

The sun could do such _wonderful_ things. 

In the kitchen, two boys were bent over a piece of paper and a book.

"Hey!" said Alice. "What's up?"

"History," said Luke. He looked up and smiled, letting himself be pulled out of his seat by Alice. "Hi, Alice." The letters dissolved to protests from Alex.

"Hi, yourself," she said, kissing him lightly on the cheek. "Do your parents know you're here?"

"Pft. No."

"Ew," said Ashton. "I didn't know you were coming here to meet your _boyfriend._ "

"Alice," complained Alex, "give me back my tutor. I have to catch up before September." He tugged slightly on his eye patch as he spoke.

Despite the best efforts of the clinic, _something_ had gone wrong with his eye. Alex had told Alice that everything he saw out of it was blurry and indistinct. Bright lights and overuse hurt it and gave him headaches.

"It's _June._ "

"I am aware."

"You're no paying Luke, anyway," said Alice. She put her hands on her hips, and peered at Alex's summer homework. Alex was right, it looked terrible.

Yes, I am."

Alice blinked, and turned to look up at Luke. "He's paying you?"

Luke shrugged, uncomfortable. "Only until July."

"So, like, his grandma is paying you?" asked Alice, tilting her head.

"No, _I'm_ paying him, just with magic, not money. He wants to--"

"You said you wouldn't mention that!"

" _You_ said you would help me, and not get distracted!"

"Is this about how you want to see if you can do fireworks with your magic?" asked Ashton. 

"Do you not know the meaning of the word surprise?" exclaimed Luke, throwing up his hands with exasperation.

"Come on, let's go outside and play," said Alice. "You can do homework later."

"Go play with your friends!" called Ms. Weatherall, poking her head in from the next room, a camera in her hands. "Get some fresh air. You've been working at that all day, and I need something for my new scrapbook."

"Gramma... you, too?"

Laughing, Alice and Luke pulled Ashton to his feet and half carried him out the door. 


End file.
